Hi Wayne,<br><br>I was a very lucky guy this christmas, and received a D-Link DPH-540. Despite the very "first gen" feel of the phone, I have been very impressed so far. <br><br>You are correct in thinking that it can act as an extension external to your network. So long as the place you're in has a decent router, it shouldn't be a problem. I have tested the phone within my local network, as well as on three other wifi networks that my friends gave me the WEP keys for, and I was able to register fine, as well make and receive calls without issue. On one network, I needed to turn the registration refresh down to 90 seconds (down from one hour) to keep the NAT hole open (but I have to do that with my Polycom 501 at the office too).
<br><br>I set the phone to use G729 (to lower bandwidth usage), and I've found the quality to be great. Depending on where I was, there was a slight delay, but that's typical of any IP phone outside the local net if the router is QoSing VoIP or the net connection isn't up to snuff.
<br><br>The only negative things I have to say about the phone are:<br><br>1) You can only store 6 network profiles. I can think of 5 off the top of my head that I visit frequently. If the 6th is left unused for open APs, what happens when I find a sixth wifi enabled venue that I visit? Hopefully this is an artificial limit that will be upped with a firmware upgrade.
<br><br>2) The refresh rate is _terrible_. It's not really an issue since you're generally not looking at the screen except for dialing, but it would be nice to see some type of fluid refresh.<br><br>3) Data entry is rough. There are only two input modes: text or numeric. The text mode defaults to uppercase characters, and if you want to enter a lowercase character, you have to cycle through all the uppercase characters on a key before you reach the lowercase ones. For example, a lowercase "a" takes four taps of the 2 key. WEP keys are case-insensitive, so that doesn't matter, but phone book entries are a nightmare. The only saving grace for this is that you can access the phone via a web interface and edit your phone book from there. I've found that I get a number from someone, type their name quickly in uppercase and then fix it later via PC when I'm connected at home.
<br><br>Cheers,<br>Alex<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 12/28/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Wayne</b> <<a href="mailto:Wayne@planetwayne.com">Wayne@planetwayne.com</a>
> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Hi List,<br>Hope everyone is recovering from the festive season :) (ok we still have
<br>new years i guess!)<br><br>Anyways, I was wondering if anyone has had any successful dealings with<br>WiFi phones and operation with '*' at all?<br><br>I've been keeping my eye on the LinkSys WIP330 (<br><a href="http://preview.tinyurl.com/nccxn">
http://preview.tinyurl.com/nccxn</a> ) and wondered your collective thoughts?<br><br>Would I be correct in thinking that (as long as the relevant ports were<br>open on the firewall) it would be possible to still be an extension to *
<br>if you could access the internet from, say, a wifi hot spot that was not<br>a part of the lan?<br><br>Thanks<br>Wayne<br><br>.<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>--Bandwidth and Colocation provided by
<a href="http://Easynews.com">Easynews.com</a> --<br><br>asterisk-users mailing list<br>To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:<br> <a href="http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users">http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
</a><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Alex Robar<br><a href="mailto:alex.robar@gmail.com">alex.robar@gmail.com</a>