[asterisk-users] Polycom Spectralink 8002 Configuration

[Jeff LaCoursiere]

On Tue, 24 Feb 2009, Michael Graves wrote:

> It seems to me that based upon your comments you miss the point of the
> product. It's design targets large commercial concerns, school
> campuses, corporate parks, etc...not making free calls from Starbucks.

Completely right.  I assumed it was a generic wifi based SIP phone.

>
> I had one under test for several months and it behaved really well on
> my WLAN using a Netgear comsumer N type rouiter/AP with WMM. WMM is
> essentially a wireless QoS mechanism. Without it you cannot assure
> voice quality if there's anything else using the WLAN.
>
> Granted, the phone is a bit fiddly to provision. In it's intended
> target markets that's not a problem. If you want to make free calls
> from hotspots you're far better of with trashy consumer oriented stuff
> that has a built-in web browser. In many cases you need it to
> authenticate against the hotspot.
>
> The best option seems to be a SIP client on a dual mode cell phone. But
> then, why use the wifi when you have a cell phone in your hand? Minutes
> are cheap in either case.

Because I still have this dream of having my extension in my hand.  I've 
had very poor luck with my iPhone and SIP clients I have tried.  The best 
I have been able to manage is X-Lite on my laptop, which actually works 
very well.  My laptop doesn't fit in my pocket, though, sadly :)

There does seem to be a market, if small, for a wifi enabled SIP phone 
that maybe isn't a full fledged cell phone.  Although I can see how the 
Polycom phone might be useful in a wide campus environment where it may 
roam among many wifi nodes, that seems a pretty small market segment.  For 
a regular office or building a DECT phone plugged into an ATA seems to be 
the way to go.  The Polycom phone, totally against the norm for Polycom 
IMO, looks and feels cheap and has funky buttons :)

I actually haven't gotten mine to work at all.  Mind pasting the config 
that works for you?  Just around the house here I am using DD-WRT on a 
Linksys WRT54G, which does support WMM.

Cheers,

j