[Asterisk-Users] why even use SIP

[Dana Olson]

On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 15:34:26 -0000, Giles Coochey
<giles.coochey at mirada-solutions.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > How about scanning for it's mac address?
> > http://ipscan.sf.net/ipscan.exe
> > >
> > > --
> > > http://www.umich2.com
> >
> >
> > Digium doesn't label the MAC address on the device, unless it's such a
> > fine print that no one can read it. I believe this has been said a few
> > times in the conversation.
> 
> Connect it with a cross-over ethernet cable to a Linux box and run
> tcpdump on the Linux box, before long you'll see the IP address come up
> on the tcpdump logs. Don't power it off, you want it to have an existing
> DHCP lease.
> 
> If you don't see any traffic, try making a call. Once you have the IP
> you can put it back on the normal network and configure it.



I know how to work around these limitations already.

My point is that this is not an enterprise-ready solution. If I order
1000 of these for our IT staff, I have to go through each and every
one with a crossover cable just to find the IP? Why would we bother
when there so many other devices that don't have any of the flaws of
the IAXy?

Of course they are SIP-only, so that's the answer to the question of
"why use SIP at all." Because there is no good solution for IAX yet.

With a little work, the IAXy can become a product not only for
hobbyists but for the corporate world as well. Until then, we will
need to rely on Sipura, Grandstream, and the like for devices that can
be much easier provisioned, either by keypad entry on the device
itself, TFTP config files, or an HTTP interface, that support DNS name
resolution, G729/iLBC/GSM codecs, have their MAC addresses labeled on
them, etc.

This is for my company only. Perhaps yours isn't so large and you have
the time and desire to go through this process for every device in
your organization, but we don't.

Yes, for home users who run Asterisk, it's fine, except if they want
to take the IAXy on the road with them and they don't have a static IP
address. For internal use in a small company, yeah, the IAXy may be a
fine solution. But when you're looking at purchasing hundreds of
devices at a time, I don't think this is a good product at this time.

All of that said, I like the IAXy, and I will gladly recommend buying
it if you're not in my position, or if Digium develops it further to
address these issues.