[Asterisk-Users] Newie Questions

[Rich Adamson]

> Thanks for your repsonse, perhaps I mis-stated my situation.  I have 
> asterisk up and running with a TDM22B and have two analog phones working 
> with two analog phone lines.  What I can't seem to get started on is the 
> setup of a SIP phone.  I have looked at all the info on voip-info.org 
> and it is somewhat helpful, but not enough to get it going.  So any help 
> would be appreciated.

The basic requirements for most sip phones is simply a userid, password,
and an IP address of the asterisk box. That's generally enough to get a sip
phone to "register" with asterisk. However, each sip phone can have a
multitude of features that "might" require additional configuration
parameters to be defined on the phone. The Grandstream BT-100 will only
have a few basic config parameters while the Polycom has roughly
fifty different configurable items (many of which stay at default
values).

The voip-info.org site is a very good reference for lots of different
things, but it really isn't the place to start when first learning the
terminology, asterisk, etc. There is also a list of references at:
 http://www.asterisk.org/index.php?menu=support

There is also books available (and some soon to be published) to 
help understand this stuff.

> Also, is it generally accecpted that the Polycom phones are a good 
> choice?  

Yes, very good business quality phone.

> Why might I choose something else?  

If you're a home user, cost might be an issue. The softphone located at
wwww.xten.com is free, Grandstream phones are roughly $75 but don't have
the same features or quality of a Cisco or Polycom phone. If callerid
name and number is important to you, the cheap Grandstream wouldn't cut
it as it doesn't display alpha characters. Etc, etc.

> Can the Polycom phones be setup to work against a propritary phone 
> system like the Nortel or Avaya?

In some cases, yes. But, the majority of commercial systems have
something that is "always" proprietary to their system. Most have
announced some form of sip support, but the functionality will 
generally be limited to basic telephony (eg, placing and taking calls). 
Features like Message Waiting Indicator may or may not work with a
sip phone, transfer key may not work, sip phone display of callerid
may not work, etc.

Each of the major vendors will have some "value-add" functions or 
features that requires the use of their phones. If you want those
features, then you're forced to buy their phones. I don't know of
any list or web site that addresses which sip phones might work with
different commercial systems. (Same in reverse; most commercial voip
system phones won't work with asterisk because of their proprietary
stuff.)