[asterisk-users] Good comparisons on cheaper VOID phones

[Michael]

> As part of this, I am going to be putting in a 30 handset Asterisk
> solution. We are trying to keep the costs down as much as possible, as this
> job includes cabling, I am looking at POE solutions.
>
> On the switch side, I am considering something like some Netgear ProSafe
> FS726TP 24 port switches, or maybe the equivalent Linksys SRW224MP 24 port
> switch.  About 4 of these will run the phones and computers on the network
> connecting back to a gigabit switch handling the phone and other servers.
>
> On the phone side VOIP phones
>
> The price range sort of limits me to:
>
> * Aastra 9112i
> * Snom 300
> * Polycom 320
> * Cisco CP-7906G (But I believe this won't handle SIP out of the box?)

With the exception of mass market stuff like their ATA's (which are actually 
all right) stay clear of anything Linksys. It's over priced, over marketed 
and undelivered, poorly supported crap. Too add to your owes a lot of it is 
very proprietary and designed to lock you in to Linksys.

Some of the above could also be said about Cisco though I do have a Cisco 
router I am very happy with and they are the gold standard. Having said that 
you are not a carrier or an ISP, and you are obviously on a limited budget, 
so I would not use any of their VoIP stuff in your situation.

The only Snom phone I ever used was a total piece of s*. Having said that some 
people seem to like them - I don't know why.

If you can get Netcomm where you are I'd recommend their V90S phone. Over all 
it's a nice phone, works well, quite classy and importantly not proprietary. 
It does have a couple of things that need improvement on - namely that you 
have to set up multiple SIP accounts on the phone to support conferencing 
(It's conferencing button doesn't function with server based conference) and 
it's web based GUI doesn't work with Firefox atm. MSIE needed for Windows or 
Konqurer on Linux works fine.
If you want these phones and you can't find them locally drop me an email.

Michael