Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications

Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (Digital European Cordless Telecommunications), usually known by the acronym DECT, is a standard primarily used for creating cordless telephone systems. It originated in Europe, where it is the universal standard, replacing earlier cordless phone standards, such as 900 MHz CT1 and CT2.

Beyond Europe, it has been adopted by Australia, and most countries in Asia and South America. North American adoption was delayed by United States radio frequency regulations. This forced development of a variation of DECT, called DECT 6.0, using a slightly different frequency range. The technology is nearly identical, but the frequency difference makes the technology incompatible with systems in other areas, even from the same manufacturer. DECT has almost universally replaced other standards in most countries where it is used, with the exception of North America.

DECT was originally intended for fast roaming between networked base stations and the first DECT product was Net³ wireless LAN. However its most popular application is single-cell cordless phones connected to traditional analog telephone, primarily in home and small office systems, though gateways with multi-cell DECT and/or DECT repeaters are also availabe in many private branch exchange (PBX) systems for medium and large businesses. DECT can also be used for purposes other than cordless phones, such as baby monitors and industrial sensors. DECT ULE is a variant tailored for home security and automation.

The DECT standard includes a common interoperability profile for simple telephone capabilities, called GAP, which most manufacturers implement. GAP-conformance enables DECT handsets and bases from different manufacturers to interoperate at the most basic level of functionality, that of making and receiving calls.

New Generation DECT (NG-DECT) standard, marketed as CAT-iq by the DECT Forum, provides a common set of advanced capabilities for handsets and base stations. CAT-iq allows interchangeability across base stations and handsets from different manufacturers, while maintaining backward-compatibility with GAP equipment. It also requires mandatory support for wideband audio.

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