What is DECT?

DECT originally stood for Digital European Cordless Telephony. To make it more palatable as a worldwide standard it was changed to Digitally Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications. It was created by ETSI as the digital replacement standard for analogue cordless phones. DECT is just as common in businesses as it is at home. Just like GSM, DECT uses TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) to transmit radio signals to phones. Whereas GSM is optimised for mobile travel over large areas, DECT is designed for a smaller areas with a large number of users. It's possible to have a mobile handset equipped for both GSM and DECT and they can operate seamlessly. The DECT standard governs some key areas such as transmitter power, which is limited to 10 milliwatts and the frequency range, which is 1.88 - 1.9GHz. However, for countries such as the USA where this frequency has been used, already the frequencies 1.91 - 1.93GHz and 2.4GHz have been agreed.