[asterisk-users] Grandstream GXP2020 / 2000

[John Faubion]

>> Has somebody experiences with the Grandstream GXP2020 / 2000 phones in
>> a business graded installation (with really traffic on .... not 3
>> calls a day ;-) ) Of course with Asterisk PBX (1.4.1 or 1.4.11 or 1.4

I have an installation right now in a real estate/mortgage company office
with 36 GXP2000 phones. Average call volume is currently only about 150-200
calls per day but the number is climbing rapidly as they add more
agents/loan officers.

The latest firmware (Beta: 1.1.4.22) is a huge improvement over 1.1.1.14
though 1.1.1.14 is the current "release" firmware. Sadly some of the
firmware loads we've tested have been horrible! The speaker phone is greatly
improved. Call forwarding was an issue for several loads if using Asterisk
1.4 or later. Seems the SIP 302 message coming from the phone was corrupted.
I had to hack chan_sip.c as a work around because this was a feature the had
worked using 1.2 and was promised with the new system. Version 1.1.4.18
finally fixed that issue so the hack isn't necessary any more.

The biggest complaint I have is the method of creating a config files for
the phones. Unlike a Polycom which allows you to configure the phone using
an XML file, the GXP requires you to create a text file with the
configuration settings and then compile that file with their software.
Additionally, if you perform a factory reset on the phone, it tries to
connect to fm.grandstream.com/gs to update it's firmware load. So we are
forced to run a caching name server with that address pointing to our own
local server. (Don't even bother trying to tell me that all I have to do is
change it in the web interface. After a factory reset, or a nice ESD zap
which seems to nearly always result in a factory reset, the default address
is back.) We have approached the configuration issue several different ways.
The current method is using a MySQL database. We built the database and then
modified the HTML from the phones web configuration to use it to update the
database. We use a cron to monitor the last update time and generate a new
set of config files once the database has been updated. If you only have a
small installation or very little turnover, our previous method of using a
text file for the database and a perl script to update the files is probably
sufficient.

While I haven't gotten any complaints about the cheap toy like feel, I think
this is mostly due to lack of experience on the part of my users. With the
GXP being the only VoIP phone they have used, they do not have a basis for
comparison. The original quote offered Polycom, Aastra, Snom, and Linksys
phones. The GXP was chosen strictly by price since the price difference
saved them over $1000. I now demonstrate the phones on a portable system to
allow the customer to see and feel the difference in the phones. I have also
increased the price of the GXP phones I sell. Between these two measures I
don't sell as many GXP phones. I feel the increase in price was justified
based on the additional work I've had in using the GXP phones. Since the
bugs are mostly worked out now, these should be more profitable for me in
the future.

John