[Asterisk-Users] Re: Transfer with Budgetone

[Adam Goryachev]

On Thu, 2004-06-03 at 10:21, Tony Hoyle wrote:
> John Fraizer wrote:
> > your desk has to be able to TELL the PBX you want to transfer a call. 
> 
> No it doesn't there's a universal (?) standard for this - hit recall, dial new 
> number.  Heck it even works on PSTN lines if you pay for the right services.

Right, so the *method* the analog phone uses to TELL the PBX to transfer
the call/start a conference/MoH/whatever is by pressing recall, dialling
new number.

The smarts are in the PBX not the phone. Though the phone DOES need a
way to tell the PBX what it wants to do. The phone is just the interface
(like the keyboard on your PC), but the PBX (CPU) is what really does
the work....

> > So, in short: Buy a cheap phone, get cheap results.
> 
> Gransteams are *not* cheap.  They're 2-3 times more expensive than analog phones.

Well, actually they are. Sure, for $20 you can buy an analog phone, for
$150 you can buy a grandstream, big difference. However, for a PBX class
telephone, you are looking at prices > $500 per handset....

You need to compare apples with apples....

Sure, a residential phone service from your telco includes some support
for some of these things (if your telco is progressive enough, and you
pay enough money) but it will never suffice as a replacement for your
own asterisk PBX....

In any case, asterisk *CAN* use standard analog phones and support these
features. In fact, EVERY feature is available when using analog phones,
this is the easiest, best supported setup for asterisk. Of course, the
quad fxs cards, or the T1 ports plus channel bank do increase the cost
anyway....

> I'm investigating VOIP for my boss (who would rather train everyone on MSN 
> Messenger but some people want a 'real' phone to talk with).  If I were to 
> spec anything more expensive than a Granstream it'd blow out the entire 
> upgrade budget just on the phones!  However I'm currently looking at the 
> feasability of keeping the analog system and having some kind of 
> analog/digital interface (if it can be done for less than £10/line then that's 
> the answer).

If you have a problem with the grandstream product, which I think
everyone acknowledges as being the cheapest hardware VoIP phone
currently on the market (someone please correct me if I am wrong), then
perhaps you should tell them that even though they have the cheapest
product on the market, they should also have the most features. Somehow,
I think while they will try to add these features over time, they will
laugh at you....

Price, Features, Reliability.
Pick any two... 

Adapted from:
Price, Speed, Reliability.
Pick any two (regarding internet connectivity)....

Finally, someone mentioned that Grandstream are adding this feature to
their phones, which is nice. So perhaps you just need to be patient....

Or buy lots of their phones so they can pay for further development.

Regards,
Adam