[Asterisk-Users] Receptionist Phones

[Daniel Hazelbaker]

What I read on snom's website was the _currently_ only one sidecar  
can be hooked up at a time.  It sounds like they are working on  
getting multiple sidecars chained together but have not got all of  
the bugs worked out.  I am kind of in the same boat.  Our current  
system offers 60 buttons on the sidecar.  It is full but they already  
don't have everybody.  Talking to the receptionists (we have a split  
office setup, one on each side of the building) they figure it would  
not be hard for them to "remove" the extensions that are not used  
very much to get the number down to the 54 currently allowed on the  
snom phone.  Particularly since it is a "short" term solution.  I  
expect either snom to get multiple sidecars working fairly soon or  
polycom to get the issue with its 7-button limit figured out (or  
Asterisk, as the case may be), and then be able to upgrade their  
phones to an "unlimited" button phone.

And the price of the snom setup is not bad at all.  $235 for the  
phone and $140 for the expansion module = $375.   Not a hard sell to  
say that they may have to "toss" a $140 expansion module if they end  
up going with a different solution later.  The phone would still be  
perfectly good.

Daniel

On Mar 28, 2006, at 8:12 AM, Bob McDowell wrote:

>
> Very true.  I am currently debating whether or not to offer it as an
> option for my employer's system.  As it currently stands, we do not  
> have
> everyone's extensions on a button.  With the snom 360 plus the  
> expansion
> we still don't have them all.  While I'm sure it would be 'better than
> nothing' from my own point of view, it might also be setting up the
> receptionist for a disappoint.  As this system is new, I'm working  
> hard
> to portray it as the 'limitless future', as opposed to the proprietary
> and very limited system we were on before.  The receptionist not  
> having
> a sidecar is present my fault, due to lack of finding a good one.
>
>
> Bob McDowell