Is there any way to do this?
When you say cordless phone, do you really mean cordless or do mean a cell phone? And if you did mean a cordless, are you talking about the base or the handset?
I seem to remember computers being cranky about connecting to the internet through a cordless base once long ago, but that’s not true anymore. Of course, now, as long as you’re close to the jack, you don’t even need a phone.
If you don’t have a jack nearby, you could use a wireless modem jack(at least that’s what Tivo calls it) You plug it into an outlet and voila, a phone jack.
I was wondering this myself when my cable modem went out recently - I have unlimited cell phone minutes, why can’t I connect through it somehow? Maybe if I had the setup that Matthew Broderick used in “War Games” where he set the entire phone receiver on a big external modem!
I should have been clearer in my post. My apologies.
I’d like to connect via the microphone in the cordless unit, not the base.
Just to be specific:
You’re looking to connect with a standard phone line modem, through a cordless phone handset, to the telephone jack in the wall, yeah?
Without doing some soldering and rewiring, this strikes me as an impossible task. There’s no output jack in the average cordless phone. There’s no way to get the little 1s and 0s from the computer’s modem into the handset, and vice-versa.
I don’t think I’ve even seen an output jack on a cordless base unit, for that matter.
You could connect both a modem and a phone to the same jack in parallel with a line splitter, though neither would be sending or receiving data through the other one. (I really don’t recommend that, BTW. You can give yourself some otherwise avoidable connectivity problems.)
You can hook up a cordless phone (or any other kind of phone, for that matter) so that the phone operates through the modem; phone line runs from wall jack to modem’s primary jack, and a second line runs from the modem’s secondary jack to the base unit of the cordless phone.
But that’s not what you’re asking, here, is it?
Well, THAT won’t work since you still need the speaker for the modem to receive signals. Without that, it cannot complete the handshake (and thus connect). You might be able to rig an old-style couple modem together (like the modem in the movie Wargames, but this would be waaaaayy too much trouble.
Every thought about a wireless router? Some of them have “modem backups” that can connect via dial-up if your cable modem goes down. I see no reason why that would work with the modem full-time.
Except that using dial-up makes baby Jesus cry.
Sorry - that should be “coupler modem” - the kind you used to put the entire handset down into instead of running a phone line to it.
If I have read correctly you want to connect your computer’s modem to a cordless home telephone handset, like those that operate at 900mHz or 2.4GHz (at least here in North America) and who’s base is plugged into a wall jack.
I’m thinking you want to use a laptop computer out in your own backyard maybe?
You might be able to use a device that allows you to adapt a PBX, payphone or hotel phone handset into an RJ-11, like those made by Konexx.
This Konexx product here is an “acoustic coupler”, like that mentioned by Rex Fenestrarum. They’re not cheap, but it would work if the shape of your handset allows you to strap the cups on good.
Slight hijack now that my curiosity’s been piqued.
Is it possible to solder together one of these:
to one of these:
?
I know the 2.5mm plug 3 connections to it, one for ground, one for the microphone, and one for the speaker. What are the purposes of the 4 wires/pins on an RJ-22 connector when dealing with their telco application? I’ve been bumping around Google for an hour now with no luck.
There is a good reason people don’t use Acoustic Couplers any more - they limit the bandwidth of the connection. The microphone/speaker is not responsive enough to support high speed communications (probably less than 9k6, a far cry from the 40k-56k of a current modem). Acoustic Couplers were used for data rates in the 300-1200 baud. Voice quality phone lines used to be estimated to be about 9k6.
Even if you feed the data directly into the wireless handset (a dubious proposition), the wireless link may also limit the connect speed to something quite low (phone bandwidth is pretty low, so the wireless manufacturers are not too interested in quality).
Simon
It strikes me as odd that nobody thought to put out a product such as this before Wifi came onto the market. Maybe there just wasn’t as many laptops out there but even the hassle of putting in a cable run would have made this a huge market IMHO. I doubt such a thing would succeed nowadays with the proliferation of broadband and 802.11 but a $50 wireless modem 5 years ago would have been a hit.
As for the cellphone thing, you need two things:
-
A way to interface the cellphone with your computer, either via infrared, a data cable or bluetooth.
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A carrier that supports data calls over your mobile. Check your local carrier to see if they support it.
WAG? Aside from the limited bandwidth, I’m guessing it’s because cordless phones come in too many form factors. Back when people used coupler modems, almost every phone (except for the “Princess” phone hehehehe. memories!) used the same headset, so it was easy to design and use.
You can, if you have a data cable. Any respectable carrier should let you connect at at least 9600 kbps… if you have the right carrier and plan, you can get up to 100 kbps or more. You don’t need to connect the cell phone to a modem because it is a modem.
I’ve used my Verizon phone to get online when my cable was out, and when I visited a friend who didn’t have cable or a phone jack, and I plan to use it again when I move (until my cable is set up). The latency makes it unsuitable for playing games, but it’s fine for browsing the web or listening to internet radio.
Why not provide your own PCMCIA card + base station embedded with a common cordless chip. I can’t imagine the entire combo costing more than $150 and 56k wireless connection anywhere around the house 5 years ago would have rocked my world!
If all you want out of the modem is an internet connection (i.e. no fax/voice/etc stuff), you could get an actiontec dual pc modem ($70), which is a poorly named product because it really is just an analog modem/router with two ethernet ports on the back. Then you plug a wireless hub into one of the ports ($20 to $150, depending on what you get), and put a wireless adapter on your PC ($0 to $150, some laptops now have these built-in).
This isn’t using your cordless phone at all, but if all you want is an internet connection over an analog modem that is accessible anywhere in your house, this combination will do the trick.