[asterisk-users] SPA942 quality for a Bank

[Rich Adamson]

Tom wrote:
> At 02:30 PM 10/15/2006, you wrote:
>> Before committing to about 50 of the spa942's, I like to take a last 
>> poll from those on the list to identify any negative issues that might 
>> be associated with the audio, functionality, early failures, etc, on 
>> the spa942.
> 
> We have been using Cisco hard phones with Asterisk for over two years.  
> Our longest experience has been with 7960g phones although recently I 
> switched to the 7970g for evaluation.  Several of us have tried the 
> SPA942's for about one month.  Personally I was real happy to go back to 
> a Cisco IP phone.  The sound quality is useable but just not as good on 
> the SPA942.  And the speaker phone on the SPA942 is poor enough quality 
> that it is barely usable.

Yes, we see about the same here comparing the old BT102, Cisco 79x), and 
the spa942. Given most of the demo's thus far are with small banks, 
price weights very heavily in their mind.

> We include the SPA-942 in our side by side demos for prospective 
> customers.  So far they are buying Cisco and willing to pay the higher 
> price.

The sales pitch tries to address the sip licensing costs on the Cisco 
79x0's, and when that's added to the base refurb cost, the banks seem to 
move quickly to the 942's.

> We only have four of the SPA-942's and have not seen any failures in our 
> limited use.
> 
>> Expecting to deploy these using existing cat5 cabling and both rj45 
>> jacks. Been using three of theme in a short term demo with the 
>> customer, but the demo systems has been purposefully configured with 
>> only basic telephony functions.
>>
>> Oh... someone mentioned the headset (no handset) pin jack is only for 
>> the microphone (and not the speaker) which would seem very odd. Anyone 
>> using a headset with the 942 where both the microphone and earpiece 
>> function fully?
> 
> We have used them with VXI headsets and the microphone works fine.

Good. Who mentioned the 'mic only' must not have had the correct 
headset/plug for the spa942.