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Forum Discussion
WiFi issues with cordless phones and Orbi
Hi community
I have been experiencing wifi dropouts when a call is made or received on a cordless phone system. The phone are DECT 6.0 and operate at 1.9Ghz, brand new system. This happened with two different phone brands and seems to happen more frequently after I upgraded the firmware to 2.6.1.36 on Orbi router and 2.6.1.38 on satellite. Using cable internet with verizon router set to bridge mode. Has anyone seen similar behavior? Any suggestions? Thanks.
21 Replies
I have a Panasonic cordless phone system with five handsets and experience no interference with my Orbi WiFi.
Since the radio frequencies are different, I would be surprised if there were any interference.
My guess is "something else" is causing a problem. Not the DECT cordless phone.
vajim wrote:interesting read:
https://www.sandman.com/knowledgebase/cordless-wifi-rfid-troubleshooting
Loved the link. Thanks. Spot on regarding issues when installing wireless systems. Particularly loved the commend that "finding the best location for wireless phones could cost more than simply running phone cables." Was drooling over that $199 spectrum analyzer until I found out (a) it actually costs $800 and (b) it covers only the 2.4G and 5G frequencies. If something is interfering with the 1.9G DECT 6.0 frequency, this box won't show it.
I am still reluctant to infer that Orbi WiFi will interfere with call quality on a DECT 6.0 cordless phone system.
Try setting manual channel 1, 6 or 11 on 2.4Ghz and any unused channel on 5Ghz.
Be sure any wireless phone system is placed far away from the RBR or RBS units...
WFH_Colorado wrote:Hi community
I have been experiencing wifi dropouts when a call is made or received on a cordless phone system. The phone are DECT 6.0 and operate at 1.9Ghz, brand new system. This happened with two different phone brands and seems to happen more frequently after I upgraded the firmware to 2.6.1.36 on Orbi router and 2.6.1.38 on satellite. Using cable internet with verizon router set to bridge mode. Has anyone seen similar behavior? Any suggestions? Thanks.
Thanks for reference. I'll take a look. The sepctrum analyzer is nice but I found that the android WiFi analyzer app or NetSpot is pretty good at seeing what's going on in the neighborhood. True, they won't look down to 1.9 and focus on 802.11 but it's informative. It's also surprising what OSX has to offer natively when you dig into "Open Wireless Diagnostics". I understand the comment about the DECT phone frequencies should not interfere but I can pretty reliably see the problem when my phone rings or there is an outbound call. I manually set to channel 10 and stayed away from 1 since it's the closest to the phones and I am not sure on the bandwidth or power of the phone. It may be a bit better. Maybe it's just coincidence but I did seem to get worse with the firmware update.
The huge difference between a spectrum analyzer and the WiFi tools is what they look for. WiFi analysis detects only WiFi packets.
Spectrum analyzer displays any sort of signal within the frequency band it is set for. Things like microwaves,, bluetooth, and 2.4G cordless phones do not show up on WiFi monitors, but appear on spectrum analyzers.
The base station for my Panasonic DECT 6.0 is about three feet from my Orbi router. It has a bluetooth capabiility to link cell phones to the Panasonic handsets which I am not using. Is this an option on yours?
WFH_Colorado wrote:Hi community
I have been experiencing wifi dropouts when a call is made or received on a cordless phone system. The phone are DECT 6.0 and operate at 1.9Ghz, brand new system. This happened with two different phone brands and seems to happen more frequently after I upgraded the firmware to 2.6.1.36 on Orbi router and 2.6.1.38 on satellite. Using cable internet with verizon router set to bridge mode. Has anyone seen similar behavior? Any suggestions? Thanks.
Another datapoint - I also have a many-handset Panasonic DECT cordless system in my house and while we don't use our landline as much anymore, I have not noticed any interference and there have been zero dropouts along with our Orbi AC and Orbi AX systems.
Just to confirm - Is the OP using VOIP or a landline? If VOIP then there are other issues to investigate.
Interesting. VOIP via xfinity. Would be interested in hearing about that potential issue. As a datapoint, I somewhat recently switch to xFi modem to get the 1GB I was not utilizing, I don't recall if issues happened about then but first set it up not in bridged mode and just let the router get an IP from the modem. I switched to bridged thinking that the radio on the modem could have been the problem but it may still be serving up xfinitywifi, I toggled that with no apparent change.
Shot in the dark here... maybe a DSL filter on the backside of the modem?
WFH_Colorado wrote:Shot in the dark here... maybe a DSL filter on the backside of the modem?
My Panasonic cordless is also VOIP (Spectrum voice from the modem). I would think if line filtering is required,it would be internal to the modem. Certainly should not hurt.
I am confused again.
- Is the ISP AT&T or Xfiinity?
- This same thing happened with a different brand of cordless phone? (WiFi dropout when the phone is used. Every phone? Just one particular phone?)
- Any luck figuring out that 'rogue' 2.4G access point on channel 1? If your Orbi is on channel 10 that should not cause any overlap.
After a lot of debugging and some internet searches, I suspected the upgraded modem hardware. I completely removed the orbi network and hardwired to the modem after taking it out of bridge mode to verify. Per suggestion from comcast employee post and private message, I went to a local store and traded the sick xb6 for a specific xb7. It turns out that a lot of arris modems with the intel puma 6/7 processor have dropping problems. There are a lot of web pages that are dedicated to this problem and list the modems to avoid.Search for "bad modems puma". The xb6 and xb7 models handed out by comcast come from two manufacturers, some use the puma processor (arris) others use a broadcom (technicolor) - note the model number on the bottom. I asked for and they had a xb7 with the broadcom and have not seen any issues previously reported. Background: the pumas cannot keep up with the load and cause drops, lags, and increased network jitter. My VPN connection saw that and disconnected. The VOIP call triggered additional load and accentuated the problem. Thanks for all your suggestions, it helped me narrow down the issue. In the end, not an orbi/phone issue but wanted to post an update. Cheers.
FURRYe38 wrote:FYI:
Show us your list of bad firmware
