[Asterisk-Users] Re: Polycom Phones

[Noah Miller]

>I purchased some 20 Polycom phones (brand new) for a very good price of
>around $165 each. Now I am having a nightmare in configuring them. I
>pulled the bootrom, SIP and config files from freedomphones.com,
>modified them for my need and and started configuring the phones. First
>couple of phones worked well, but I could not configure most of the
>remaining phones. They complain about "Error in loading bootrom". I
>suspect these are newer phones with newer bootrom than I have.
>  
>
This could very well be a text encoding issue.  The phones are EXTREMELY 
picky about the format of the config files.  They must be in UTF-8, or 
something very close to it.  If you just open one of the files in a 
random text editor and save it, you will likely encounter problems when 
loading that config file.  I had success when editing them with Windows 
notepad (and explicitly saving with text encoding of UTF-8), and GNU nano. 

Also, if you upgrade the phones, I've been told that you have to upgrade 
sequentially - i.e. don't try to upgrade from 1.3.0.xxxx to 1.4.1.  
Instead, do 1.3.0.xxxx to 1.3.1.0056 to 1.3.4.0003 to 1.4.1.xxxx.

>Now I am thinking why the hell should I use Polycom phones when they are
>so knee jerk about the Asterisk community. They would not even give us
>legitimate firmware either. They are so arrogant (or stupid) to keep off
>such a significant user community. 
>  
>
That's one I don't understand myself.  Who do they think is buying all 
their phones?  I'm sure a good portion of their sales is to the asterisk 
community.  The only explanation I have is that they don't care about 
the phones because they are selling them at extremely low margins (or at 
a loss) to promote their other poducts or to compete with Cisco. 

>What do others feel about this issue. Should we just decide to stay away
>from Polycom phones? Or try to keep a copy of their firmware somewhere
>in the community like freedomphones.com?
>  
>
I personally like my Polycom phones very much (more than Snom, more than 
Cisco). Once you get them running, they are extremely reliable, and the 
sound quality, ease-of-use and features are excellent.  I don't think 
you can find a better value in SIP phones anywhere.  That being said - 
don't expect them to be easy to use, and don't expect support from 
Polycom.  The firmware IS on freedomphones.net, and has been for some 
time (now the newest versions are there, too).

I think this list (and the manual) are the best you're going to get in 
terms of support.