[Asterisk-Users] multiline, cordless, expandable phone system and asterisk message waiting

[Harondel J. Sibble]

Basically, pretty much all the 2 line cordless systems I've seen come with a 
built in digital answering system that I'll never use, the main problem with 
this is that these units don't support VMWI (visual message waiting  
indicator) with telco supplied voicemail.  This is a problem because I'll be 
setup an Asterisk system in the next month or so to handle my 2 analog and 1 
voip phone lines and I want to be able to know by looking at the phones that 
there are messages waiting rather than having to check manually each time. 

In ideal world, I'll link this all together with Mister House and X10 for the 

connected home of my dreams :-)  I just saw "The Stepford Wives" with Nicole 
Kidman and I was drooling at the home automation stuff...

I've been on the lookout for a 2 line, multihandset, cordless, expandable 
system for a few years now. I already have a couple corded 2 line phone sets, 
one of which will be replaced by whatever system I get.

I've tried a few, most recently, the AT&T E2562

http://snipurl.com/dkqc

Which is pretty much perfect except for 2 things

1) The base station/corded phone is not wall mountable (not critical)
2) The unit doesn't have WMWI (visual message waiting indicator) for Telco 
provided voicemail, the VMWI only works with the units onboard answering 
system. :-(

I've looked at some Vtech systems, most are pretty nice, work well (I have 
several clients using them) and have most of the features I want, except the 
availability seems low as Staples (and other local retailers) have stopped 
carrying the unit I want.  The local Vtech factory store also closed a few 
weeks ago :-(

Panasonic has some really nice units, 5.8ghz, but no multiline 5.8ghz units, 
they also don't seem to have much in the way of multiline units in general. 
Siemens stuff looks nice but again, local availability is low. From my 
browsing there seems to be ZILCH in the way of 2 line 5.8ghz units. Actually 
I just came across one from Panasonic,much to my surprise.

Basically I want the following, any suggestions would be much appreciated:

- 2.4ghz (or 5.8) DSS/frequency hopping
- 2 line
- expandable up to at least 3 handsets
- speakerphone in each handset
- speakerphone should actually work full duplex, most speakerphones I've used 
don't work well when it's quiet, let alone when there is background noise
- if the base is also a corded phone, that'd be cool
- call waiting caller id support
- VMWI that works with telco supplied voicemail, most of the 2 line systems 
that have a built in answering machine don't seem to support this
- 2.5mm headset jack on all handsets
- sturdy belt clip on all handsets
- rings tones for each line that are sufficiently different to really 
distinguish between lines. I had a 2 line panasonic corded phone that had 
ring tones that were so similar, I was never sure which line I was answering 
without looking at the lcd display
- call logs saved to NVRAM if power goes out, or some kind of battery backup 
to save the call logs in event of power failure

I _think_ that about covers it.

-- 
Harondel J. Sibble 
Sibble Computer Consulting
Creating solutions for the small business and home computer user.
help at pdscc.com (use pgp keyid 0x3AD5C11D) http://www.pdscc.com
(604) 739-3709 (voice/fax)      (604) 686-2253 (pager)