[asterisk-users] VoIP PoE phones for restaurant (kitchen)

[Mike]

> If you do get a Polycom, the old 501 (discontinued) have a louder ring 
> (or can be configured to have a louder ring, don`t quite remember) 
> then the newer ones. But the others are right: it's not meant for 
> this, at least not in a noisy environment. What can work though is a 
> Polycom 321, with a (loud) speaker plugged into the 3.5mm port and 
> properly configured to have the speaker take the call (see paging app 
> and Polycom admin manual).  It`s a bit of a hassle but it`s much 
> better than the unreliable and expensive Cyberdata paging products (I 
> hated the one I tried, replaced it with a 321 as described).
>
> Mike
>


> Ah.. so you've used the Cyberdata intercom and didn't like it.  What about
it was unreliable? Thank you for the inp. ut.

Not the intercom, the paging server.  It was in a very active environment
(car dealership, sometimes many pages per minute).  It just stopped
responding for a few minutes once in a while.  The config is actually very
easy.  Under less load, it worked well.

> What loud speaker did you end up going with?

Polycom 321 with a 3.5mm plug to an external speaker. They already had
something in place speaker-wise, so didn't bother checking.


> Was it cumbersome (space-wise) to have a phone and a loudspeaker?
Space wasn't an issue there, it was a Polycom 321 connected to a
building-wide paging system in a server room. I imagine on a busy kitchen
wall it's different. 


Mike