[Asterisk-Users] New to IP-PBX

[Rich Adamson]

> I have been seeing reccomendations for using asterisk as a soft-pbx with
> the reccomendation being to use regular analog phones via FXS rather
> than SIP.
> 
> Is this still a big issue? Or is this a left-over from previous bad
> experiences?  I have been doing demos with SIP phones, and some IAXYs to
> whet their apetites, and people are really biting at the feature set I
> can provide, and I have run into no problems yet,  but I would love to
> know at what threshold of SIP phones does the system start to have
> problems.

One of the primary drivers for using FXS rather than SIP is that 
traditional pbx sales people sell their products based primarily 
on least cost. Historically, they use to sell features, least
cost call routing, toll bypass, and other such things as they
use to be popular sales attractions.

Given what has happened to long distance costs, the least cost
call routing kinds of things are not much of a concern on the
part of the buyer any more. As a result, the business oriented
buyer (not technical people) are far more oriented towards initial
cost and features because that's one of the things they can
understand.

If you search the * list you'll find all kinds of postings 
relative to "I can configure a cheaper asterisk then you can", 
and if initial cost is a serious factor for the business buyer, 
then FXS is likely the approach.

However, with that said, how you communicate with the business
buyer will make all the difference in the world. If you structure
you sales pitch around cost, you're heading for FXS's. If you
change that pitch, selling solid well-defined sip phones is a
piece of cake.

So, if you understand your customer's actual requirements and
the stability of their network infrastructure, selling sip 
into an account should be easy in most cases.

Rich