[asterisk-users] Digital Phones

[Steve Totaro]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-
> bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Bosch
> Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 1:36 AM
> To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
> Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] Digital Phones
> 
> Salvatore Giudice wrote:
> > Nortel digital Meridian phones are like $400/each. At least that was
the
> > price of the phones at a hotel I did a job for recently.
> 
> Still?
> 
> (Is Nortel even making these phones anymore? I thought they spun off
> their telephone set division -- anybody heard of Aastra? ;) )
> 
> > When you go to SIP, you may save on the capital costs for the
phones,
> but
> > other costs will increase. These are related to:
> >
> > 1.) increased support requirements for supporting VoIP
> > 2.) additional licensing may be required from your vendor to support
SIP
> or
> > IP media
> > 3.) increased costs associated with mitigating potential damages
since
> your
> > voice services are now subject to the same outages as your network
> > 4.) increased training costs for staff to become proficient in VoIP
> > 5.) increased costs associated with monitoring QoS
> > 6.) increased costs associated with reconfiguring your network for
VoIP
> and
> > QoS - many times new switches may have to be purchased in addition
to
> SBC's
> > etc
> > 7.) additional costs associated with rewiring physical space to
> accommodate
> > additional Ethernet ports required for phones
> 
> Yes, 7 times.
> 
> > Sometimes, if you already have digital - it may not be worth
switching
> to
> > SIP even if you save a ton on the handsets. Whenever we switch over
a
> hotel
> > to VoIP, we always run into these extra 'hidden' costs.
> >
> > If you want to do digital with asterisk, I think you'll need a T1/E1
> > multiplexer that supports digital phones.
> 
> Is this anything like a channel bank, only for digital phones?
> 
> Can you suggest any examples?
> 
> -Stephen-


Citel makes SIP to Digital gateways.  I have had poor experience with
them and doubt I would try it again without seeing many improvements
listed in their firmware releases.

Just to clarify, I had loud bursts of static when first picking up or
originating a call, phones resetting for no reason, regular interval
popping sounds.  Citel fixed the popping sound by replacing one of the
gateways but the other issues were never fixed.

Also, the phones did not act the way I would have liked.  When dialing,
only a beep was heard, not actual DTMF and stutter dialtone MWI could
not be disabled even though the phone I used had a MWI light and LCD
display showed messages.

Thanks,
Steve Totaro
http://www.asteriskhelpdesk.com
KB3OPB