Have you ever heard a stranger’s conversation when making a call or while in a call on your cordless phone? If you’ve ever listened briefly to the conversation you’ve likely grown bored with it pretty fast when you realized the conversation isn’t anything interesting, just two people conversing about regular daily events. Of course, since you can hear the conversation of others, there is a possibility that other cordless phone users are picking up on your conversations as well.
You may not care to think about this issue, or think it is not a big deal. However, in actuality, this flaw in cordless phone technology can be quite dangerous. Imagine what could happen if trade secrets and insider information could be heard. Can you imagine the detrimental and financially damaging effect poor cordless phone security could cause a company or even you if you were giving out your personal information over the phone? Unfortunately, all it takes for anyone to listen in on a cordless phone conversation is a cheap $200 radio scanner.
Why is it so easy to listen in on a cordless phone conversation? Cordless phones are nothing more than small radio transmitters and receivers. Each handset and its coinciding base station communicate with one another over a pair or channels or frequencies. Therefore, anyone who uses a cordless phone with poor security is susceptible to third party interception that could be as far as a mile away.
Eavesdropping on cordless phone conversations has been an ongoing problem. For this reason, several technologies have been invented to help effectively keep conversations private. Some of these features include:
• Channel hopping – This is when the phone’s signal and receiver is transmitted to diverse and random frequencies. This makes it more difficult for an eavesdropper to keep up with the location of the signal.
• Digital security codes – when a handset that features this technology is placed into its base unit, it is assigned one of as many as 100,000 digital codes. This code is continually transmitted during a phone call. This prevents people with similar handsets from being able to eavesdrop or use your phone line to make calls.
• SST (spread spectrum technology) – this technology separates and spreads a voice signal over many channels during transmission, and then puts it back into its initial form. This makes call interception harder to achieve, and SST phones also deliver superior range.
• Higher frequencies – Expensive scanners have a difficult time intercepting calls made on cordless phones with 2.4 GHz frequencies. The reason is because these higher frequencies tend to always transmit digitally.
Thus, while a cordless phone can be very convenient when it comes to using landlines, if you intend on using cordless phones, make sure you obtain one that has at least a 2.4 GHz frequency, channel hopping options, features SST, and digital security codes. If you are not sure if the phone you are interested in has these features, don’t be afraid to ask someone with the right knowledge. Your security is worth it.