[Asterisk-Users] Re: New to Asterisk and a question

[Brad Stockdale]

Greetings all,

    I have been watching Asterisk for a while now, but haven't had the 
nerve to jump in and start playing until now... I'm fed up with our phone 
system (or lack thereof) at my office, so I decided to start seriously 
looking at Asterisk... Mostly as a plaything to get my hands on it, but 
with the goal of making our phone system here somewhat bearable...

    We have four incoming POTS lines, which I am going to purchase a 
TDM400P with four FXO modules to handle... I saw a bundle on Digiums 
website that I think will suit this requirement nicely...

    I want to use some Cisco IP phones for each of our desks (there's four 
of us here)... This is where my question comes in... Does anyone have any 
recommendations for a model of Cisco IP phone to use? I cannot afford 
anything expensive -- we're a small company, and to be honest this whole 
project will be coming out of my personal pocket (I'm part owner of the 
company, so I can do that and not feel too bad about it. ;) )... Been 
watching Ebay and saw that Cisco 7940G phones, while expensive, aren't 
totally out of the question... The next rung down looks ok too (7912G)... 
Does anyone have any firm objections or praise for these two models? Is 
there some other make and model that I should look at with similar 
functionality that may work better with Asterisk? I'm assuming that if the 
Cisco phones are OK to use, I will have to make them work with SIP?

    Just looking for opinions on the interoperability of Cisco IP phones 
and Asterisk.

Thanks!
Brad