[Asterisk-Users] Which IP phone to use in Australia

[Paul Hales]

Regarding your quote about Polycom - I'm not sure what you mean by 'Polycom won't sell...'

We have over 100 polycom's out and about, all hooked into our 3 Asterisk servers.

Later,

PaulH 

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Shaun Ewing
Sent: Wednesday, 16 February 2005 9:55 AM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Which IP phone to use in Australia

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 17:13:39 +1100, Rudolf Ladyzhenskii <Rudolf.ladyzhenskii at opennw.com> wrote:
> Hi, all
> 
> I am in Australia and I have to setup Asterisk in few offices. There will be IP phones in each office and I must be able to call between offices.
> 
> I need actual handsets. I need "standard" handsets to be used by people. Those must support features like CID, call forward, etc. --- your normal office feature set.
> Also I need some sort of more complex handset to be used by receptionist.
> 
> The main problem is that I am in Australia and I need to get phones 
> that can be sourced in Australia. (correct power supplies, certified 
> for australia, etc..)
> 
> I did look at supported h/w list and I am going to go through all of those companies, but I have no idea on how good/bad those phones are. I really need some advise here.

The Cisco 79xx range of IP phones (including 7905G, 7940G and 7960G) work just fine in Australia, and have an A-Tick. The CP-PWR-CUBE= is the official power pack, which works with any standard IEC computer power cable. There's also a cheaper generic power pack available from some retailers, or if you have a Cisco PWR switch you can use Cisco PoE.

The three types allow one to match the phone to a person's calling requirements.

I typically buy my phones from Techtopia (http://www.techtopia.com.au). Buying locally means that there aren't any issues with power supplies, customs, etc.

I've tried two types of phones - Grandstream BT-101 and the Ciscos.

The Grandstream is useless for any serious calling, and would not be recommended for a receptionist. We've had it do all sorts of nasty things including putting a call on hold indefinitely when trying to transfer. One particular version of the firmware also caused problems with our network. It's also necessary to press "send" after dialing a number (or wait for the timeout). No A-Tick either.

The Cisco phones do their job brilliantly - they also look very nice aesthetically. They're exceptionally easy to use with softkeys guiding one through tasks such as transfer, etc.

The 7960 phone is perfect for a receptionist - it supports a headset (as does the 7940), and can have up to 12 simultaneous calls over 6 'lines'. One can also configure a dial plan on the Cisco phones, so that calls progress automatically when the correct number of digits has been entered (eg: 0 02 5551 5551).

I spent around an hour testing the Polycom IP500 and IP600 phones nearly two years ago (when my interest in VoIP was picking up). They seem quite nice, but i don't have any of these deployed. I refuse to - Polycom won't sell them to people for use with Asterisk, and I'm not going to buy products from a company that try and dictate how I use their product.

-Shaun
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