[Asterisk-Users] Re: Polycom vs. Cisco IP Phones

[Christopher Jacob]

Oddly enough, I am in the middle of dealing with both a Cisco phone problem
and a Polycom phone problem. The Polycom problem I caused myself (oops
during a flash) and the Cisco problem came out of nowhere.

Polycom
During a flash upgrade I lost power (tripped over the cord) and the phone
was DEAD. I called polycom, gave them the serial number and they cross
shipped a brand new phone to me the next day. I was amazed. With the chatter
on this list I was gearing up for a fight.

Cisco
One of my users came to me to report that Cisco 7960 had gone belly up.
These phones always seemed pretty hearty to me, so I was surprised. I
checked it out and sure enough not only was it dead, but it would eat any
switch port I plugged it into. (seems it was sending power down the Ethernet
cable, which is not a good thing) I called Cisco and they said, well you
didn't buy it from us so contact the reseller. I contacted the reseller
(which is a prominent member of the asterisk community and sells a _bunch_
of asterisk related gear. 

The first response via email was " It is very rare to have a problem with
one of these phones." So I email back and said, well it's only a few (less
than 6) months old, can I RMA it for a replacement.... No response

So I called, and got someone in Customer Service. He said, "oh well we don't
buy those phones from Cisco so they wont deal with us either. I will have to
contact our supplier and get back to you."

Fine, I thought....

Well a week later I had not received a call. So I called back today. He
apologized and promised that he would have an answer for me soon.

Now I'm not throwing anyone under the bus here. They are trying to make
things right. I am just using my experience as an example.

So, the moral of this story....

While Polycom may not offer configuration type support for asterisk, they
stand by their hardware. With Cisco you have to shop around to find a decent
deal, and who know how you're going to get support. I don't mind using this
list / the wiki / google / etc. for configuration type questions. After all
I don't expect Super Micro to help me get FC running on one of their
motherboards...

Just my thoughts....


~c
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Message: 6
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 13:13:14 -0500
From: Noah Miller <noah at rosecompanies.com>
Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Re: Polycom vs. Cisco IP Phones
To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
Message-ID: <6fff186cd9eed5e3c7874dcc8dcce048 at rosecompanies.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed

> Not sure the rquirements for your receptionist. I have found that the
> IP600 does have most everything required to function properly. If you
> do have an office without DID and a lot of traffic then you may want to
> look at the tools to display status on her computer. I do have a Snom
> inhouse for testing when I get a chance. Their quality however is not
> as good as either Cisco or Polycom.

My experience is that the Cisco and Polycom phones are both about in 
terms audio quality and useability.  Neither one does exactly what I'd 
expect with respect to multiple lines.  They both take a little extra 
setup in this regard, but you can read the wiki for that stuff.  Snoms 
do exactly what I'd expect for a multiple line phone, are very easy to 
setup, but the audio quality and usability do not compare favorably 
with either Cisco or Polycom.

Between Cisco and Polycom, I went with Polycom just because of cost.  
The Polycom units are MUCH less expensive (since this is not the biz 
list, ask me privately about my reseller that is cheaper than others 
you'll find).  On the other hand, Polycom VoIP phones are NOT supported 
by the company.  The only way I've gotten support for them is from this 
list.  Cisco definitely supports all their products quite nicely (for a 
fee).