[asterisk-users] wireless VOIP phone recommendations?

[Geraint]

We're using Pirelli DPL10's and nokia N95's with cisco aironet access 
points and both phones are quite happy roaming around the building (6 
access points) during calls - the nokias seem to have better signal 
strength and audio quality than the pirelli's though.

Geraint

SIP wrote:
> Brian J. Murrell wrote:
>   
>> On Tue, 2008-02-05 at 14:37 +0000, henry at henrythebig.com wrote:
>>   
>>     
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I use Linksys WIP 330 and the sound is good, talk time with full battery go up to 2 hours, I'm happy with.
>>>     
>>>       
>> Ahhh.  OP wanted to know about wirelessly networked phones.  Interesting
>> as they are (and expensive -- the WIP-330 retails for $229 at
>> voiplink.com), I was hoping this would be a thread about simply cordless
>> IP (SIP or IAX) phones.  I think these tend to be available at a more
>> reasonable price.
>>
>> I have a Panasonic GLOBALRANGE BB-GT1500CB
>> (http://www.panasonic.ca/english/telecom/telephones/globarange/index.asp) which technically is supposed to only work with the "Joip" service, but spoofing this phone to work with your Asterisk server is not too difficult.  It's a reasonable phone at a reasonable price (CAN$70 the last time I looked at a retail shop) but I have found that it can "drop out" sometimes.
>>
>> I tend to think the drop-out is in the audio handling in the handset
>> itself rather than anything on the network.  It seems like it might be
>> some kind of silence detection and optimization circuitry (i.e. not
>> transmitting dead air to the base station) that just doesn't work in
>> real-life as well as it did on paper.
>>
>> Also this Panasonic phone does not do call-waiting.  When there is a
>> call in session on it, an attempt to route a second call to it from
>> Asterisk results in a "busy here" message back from the phone.  :-(
>>
>> I wonder what else is out there in a more affordable "consumer" price
>> range.  I guess there is always ATAs and regular phones.  I've always
>> wondered though if there is any benefit to even a basic phone such as
>> the GLOBALRANGE phones being native SIP vs. just using an ATA.  I have
>> not discovered anything this phone can do above and beyond what our
>> standard cordless Panasonic phone does plugged into an ATA.
>>
>> b.
>>
>>   
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>>
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> For the most part, for day to day dialing, you won't see any really 
> significant difference between a WiFi phone and an ATA with a regular 
> cordless or DECT phone. You may lose the ability to dial SIP URIs 
> (although not all wifi sip handsets have this ability). 
>
> However, in general, none of the true Wi-Fi phones we've tested other 
> than the Nokia E series have been worth mucking with. Dropping off APs, 
> poor NAT capability, low battery life, troublesome configurations, 
> random weirdness -- these seem to abound in the world of wi-fi SIP. This 
> is why the usual scenario for any sort of office-wide deployment 
> involves DECT.
>
> It's a shame, really. With wi-fi being so prevalent so many places we 
> go, and with the possibility for portability being outstanding, it's a 
> shame the hardware manufacturers haven't quite made anything worth buying.
>
> N.
>
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