General Forum

Re: BEOCOM 5 - UK price

tournedos — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:21:11 GMT

It still works pretty much like that, when we get to several gigahertz, obstructions start to affect more and more until you ultimately will have worse connections through moist air (that'll take double digit GHz's, though).

The 2.4 GHz area has problems, both because being nowadays so crowded with WLANs and all kinds of wireless products, and because it will be badly hit by microwave ovens.

But all this doesn't seem to bother DECT telephones that much, they seem to work much farther and better through obstructions than, say, WLAN. I believe this is because the data rate is much lower, which means that a much worse signal-to-noise ratio will still be enough to carry it. So there's not much need to move the telephones any higher - there's plenty of space for them at the current band, and the move might just create range problems in larger buildings with heavy walls.

EDIT: the cellular phones are a completely different thing - there, the lower frequencies really are getting too crowded, which is why they have moved from 450 MHz - 900 - 1800 - 1900 - 2100 and so on. The tradeoff is the cell size, it gets seriously small at the higher frequencies, which is why 3G is moving back down to 900 MHz while room is being made from other services. But these cordless home/office telephones really don't need mile-long ranges from the base

Re: BEOCOM 5 - UK price

Evan — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:12:57 GMT

I had thought it might be for the reason of over crowding.

When I had first seen those figures I had to do a double take, I was like B&O could have done better. But I didn't take all of that into consideration.

Re: BEOCOM 5 - UK price

Stan — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:51:21 GMT

I worked for a police radio company at one point in my career so I know enough about this to be dangerous .

It is my understanding that higher frequency is not necessarily better. Although, much of this depends on your definition of "better". The lower frequencies (800MHz - 2.4GHz) actually travel through materials better than higher frequencies (5GHz). For example, I have a dual-band router (2.4GHz and 5GHz), and my computer on the other side of my house does better with the 2.4GHz. As technology has progressed, higher seemed better because the higher spectrum was new so it was less crowded (and was generally faster, but I don't know if this so much a function of the higher broadcast frequency vs. advances in protocol technology), and much of the problems of the lower frequencies had more to do with crowding of the spectrum than technological problems with the frequency band. Then again, back then 900MHz was the new frequency band (which doesn't go through trees and heavy vegetation as well as the lower frequencies) so maybe conclusions about the differences between UHF - 800MHz and 900MHz are not the same as 1.9GHz - 2.4GHz and 5 GHz.

Stan

Re: BEOCOM 5 - UK price

Evan — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:35:29 GMT

I thought that the telephone industry as a whole was moving up in frequency (not that B&O follows the norm). I have been told that higher frequency is more beneficial. Have I been ill informed?

Re: BEOCOM 5 - UK price

Peter — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:27:26 GMT

That is a US thing. The BeCom 5 will work with the older EU Beoline but not in two line mode. If you integrate with Beocom 6000s or 2s, you lose some of the 5 features.

Re: BEOCOM 5 - UK price

Stan — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:12:14 GMT

danezro:

if you already have a PSTN base or full BeoCom 6000 / 2 then it is compatible (I'm not sure about ISDN).

This is not what my dealer told me. He showed me his "BeoCom 5 FAQ", and it specifically said that the BeoCom5 operated at 1.9GHz (or was it 1.8GHz?) whereas the BeoCom 6000 / 1 / 2 operate at 2.4GHz so they are definitely *NOT* compatible.

I suppose this could be a north american thing, but I would double-check.

Stan

Re: BEOCOM 5 - UK price

PentaIII — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:28:58 GMT

Peter :

Do you also need the new Beoline? I was told the full package ran to about £600

That's about the same ballpark figures I got today. Got to have a quick play around with it too, the build quality is amazing and feels great in your hands.

Re: BEOCOM 5 - UK price

danezro — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:08:37 GMT

The full package is about £600, but if you already have a PSTN base or full BeoCom 6000 / 2 then it is compatible (I'm not sure about ISDN).

I have the old large flat style PSTN box which they originally said would need have to have a firmware upgrade, but after further discussions, if you have the latest version of the BeoCom 6000 working (MKII - the one which you can attach the earset) then the BeoCom 5 will work fine as well.

Re: BEOCOM 5 - UK price

Peter — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:57:21 GMT

Do you also need the new Beoline? I was told the full package ran to about £600

BEOCOM 5 - UK price

danezro — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:48:33 GMT

I've seen in a few threads people asking about the price...

I just pre-ordered a Beocom 5 with the speaker base (non PSTN) from my dealer in London - I will pick it up in December:

Phone UK£285

Speaker Base UK£125