[Asterisk-Users] Re: Transfer with Budgetone

[Tony Hoyle]

Adam Goryachev wrote:

> The smarts are in the PBX not the phone. Though the phone DOES need a
> way to tell the PBX what it wants to do. The phone is just the interface
> (like the keyboard on your PC), but the PBX (CPU) is what really does
> the work....

That was the point I started with...

  > Well, actually they are. Sure, for $20 you can buy an analog phone, for
> $150 you can buy a grandstream, big difference. However, for a PBX class
> telephone, you are looking at prices > $500 per handset....

No idea what you mean by PBX class telephone but if anyone at our company 
spent $500 on a phone they'd probably be fired (unless it was the boss).

Our desktop phones were done as a package deal from the building owner (who 
also runs the existing PBX) for almost nothing.

> If you have a problem with the grandstream product, which I think
> everyone acknowledges as being the cheapest hardware VoIP phone
> currently on the market (someone please correct me if I am wrong), then
> perhaps you should tell them that even though they have the cheapest
> product on the market, they should also have the most features. Somehow,
> I think while they will try to add these features over time, they will
> laugh at you....

All the company would want a phone to do is:

1. Make calls.
2. Receive calls.

Just a straight replacement of the cheap phones that everyone gets with one 
that has a cat5 socket on the back, does DHCP and auto configures itself. 
Nothing flashy.  It doesn't need an LCD display with the time on it, or a big 
flashing 'message' button.  Just a phone - preferably for no more cost than an 
analogue phone.

The rest of the PBX stuff isn't needed (except *00# for call pickup, which 
gets used a lot).

If I can't spec out a system which is like that then the project will be 
shelved - which I suspect is precisely what my boss wants to happen (he's also 
the main advocate of the MSN Messenger solution).  Corporate politics is like 
that...

The advantage is I got an excuse to play with Asterisk/VOIP at home (have a 
Granstream and there's a Sipura coming [there was some talk of using sipuras 
for those people that need them rather than using a digital PBX]).  I'll have 
to use them now I've spent so much time/money on them....

For myself I'd love to play with a Cisco but with the 7960 going for £600 a 
throw I'm not in the market for spending that much...

Tony

-- 
Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure.

Tony Hoyle <tmh at nodomain.org>  Key ID: 104D/4F4B6917 2003-09-13
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