[Asterisk-Users] ADSI -- is it dead? Worth bothering with?

[Yu Safin]

On 10/5/05, Don Pobanz <asterisk at hastingsutilities.com> wrote:
> Stephen Bosch wrote:
> > Since Colin Anderson -- in a previous thread -- asked the question about
> > whether ADSI was dead, I thought it was worth discussing.
> >
> >
> > Does anybody else have anything to add?
> >
> > -Stephen-
>
> I hope ADSI is not dead! We have 100 Aastra 390 ADSI phones with 20 of
> them in service.
>
> We have locations where the infrastructure will not support packet based
> phones, even if we wanted to use them, yet we would like to give people
> some menus to lesson the learning curve.
>
> Having a menu that changes based on context is great. I really like the
> voice mail menu where you do not need to remember any of the keys to
> press but just read the item and press the button by your selection. The
> only problem is the length of time it takes to load the menu. I believe
> there is really no need to load the stuff every time voicemail is
> dialed. The local phone company offers ADSI service. They have a number
> to dial to program the ADSI menus. This number only needs to be dialed
> once. After that things are pretty snappy.
>
> I will soon start work on converting the rest of our company to
> primarily ADSI phones.
>
> Don Pobanz
First my disclaimer, "I have never done anything with ADSI" beyond theory.
I have always thought that ADSI is the best approach for RJ11
connections that require PBX type features on the phone (mostly
support for keys such as "call log", "messages", "options",
"applications", "mute" and so on).
May be due to my own ignorance, I tried CISCO IP phones (sccp) and SIP
IP phones and found some of the features were supported.  Granted, not
as rich as ADSI or my Merridian PBX desk phone but sufficient for 80%
of the cases.
I have also discovered to my satisfaction that through tftp I can
manage a large number of CISCO sccp and SIP phones with a one time
effort.
I would be curious about what other members of this list think about
the best practices for giving clients functionality on their desk
phones.