[asterisk-biz] Wireless SIP phones?

Wed Jul 16 01:59:46 CDT 2008

> If you just want wireless you have options, there are DECT 
> base stations that convert to sip, that lets you have 
> multiple handsets with one base (normally), you have a 
> protocol similar to GSM for authentication of the handsets 
> (ETSI makes many mentions of GSM in the DECT spect) and if 
> you get GAP (the encryption algorithm for link layer 
> encryption) generally you can mix and match handsets and base units. 
> 
> Some dect solutions can be had for as little as $100 
> including the base unit and 1 handset.  
> 
> If you are looking for more robust wireless solutions, 
> elcotel makes a cpci rackable dect base system which allows 
> multiple base stations for better roaming.  And the roaming 
> would be more akin to a mobile phone handoff than wifi - so 
> its faster, easier and generally better.  People have 
> connected these elcotel switches to asterisk via the misdn 
> interface.  With this switch I have seen 2000 people on one 
> system, 15 or so base stations covering quite a large geography.  
> 

Recently we did an installation of a DECT to sip system from Philips, the
AP200. 
The system was part of our Hermes PBX we have procured to a local company
The installtion was at a manufacturing building (actually they repair ship
engines) around 7 acres with 5 levels/floors.
The system has 6 DECT base stations and works much better than I originally
unticipated.
What you do, is register the DECT phone to one of the base stations and then
you can roam arround. Hand-off time is so fast you can talk while moving
from station to station and there is no interruption.
Although the system comes with Philips phones, we were able to get GAP
compatible phones to work without any issue from manufactures like
Siemens,and Panasonic
The only down side to the system is that their windows based setup software
can take several days to setup and master, but the more recent version,
seems to solve a lot of the issues.
Once you master that, interfacing with asterisk "just works" tm :)

I have used wifi phones in the past for similar projects but the DECT
solution offers a much better alternative
Handoff timming and battery life were the main drawbacks for wifi solutions
we have used and DECT wins clearly in these fields.
And one other thing we realized and made us switch to DECT, is that wifi
phones, are in most cases, a bad security choice. 
Most of the entry level one's do not support encryption and even if they
had, they were WEP based, that can now be cracked in a few minutes.

Stelios S. Koroneos

Digital OPSiS - Embedded Intelligence
http://www.digital-opsis.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com 
> [mailto:asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of 
> Trixter aka Bret McDanel
> Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 8:30 PM
> To: Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk Discussion
> Subject: Re: [asterisk-biz] Wireless SIP phones?
> 
> On Tue, 2008-07-15 at 11:14 -0700, Rehan Allah Wala wrote:
> > I would recommend to use Nokia e series rather then any linksys or 
> > dlink
> > 
> > they are just better and are 2 in one
> > 
> 
> yeah but more expensive :)
> 
> It does however require more infrastructure than what is 
> generally required for wifi, but then wifi is half duplex and 
> dect isnt, dect has better handoffs than wifi which handoffs 
> are more of a add on later rather than a designed feature.
> 
> 
> 
> > > I've also tried contacting various vendors such as 
> Polycom, and it 
> > > seems that a lot of them require separate gateway boxes -- the 
> > > handsets aren't speaking SIP directly, or require some 
> other server 
> > > to make it work.  That strikes me as overkill.
> > > 
> 
> and it may be overkill, but it depends on the features you 
> get, if its a good base and allows multiple handsets (each 
> individually addressable so you can make only the ones ring 
> you want, each is a separate channel,
> etc) then depending on what you need this may be a better option.  
> 
> If however you want a simple all in one solution that is just 
> a wifi sip enabled phone, you are probably going to get many 
> of the problems that you have mentioned before.  The same is 
> true for the lower end dect systems as well.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
> Belfast +44 28 9099 6461        US +1 516 687 5200
> http://www.trxtel.com the phone company that pays you!
> 
> 
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