What SIP phones should I buy?

What SIP phones should I buy?

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Subject Author Date
What SIP phones should I buy? Ramon F Herrera 09-26-2007
Posted by Ramon F Herrera on September 26, 2007, 12:49 am
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I am very familiar with the Sipura/Linksys line of ATAs and some of
the phones. My problem is that I am offering to replace traditional
PBXs with an Asterisk-based PBX. Many of those customers are used to
brand names like Avaya and would like to have a top brand, nice
looking, with the best audio, etc. phone sets.

Frankly speaking, the SPA941 looks kind of cheap, and its sound is not
that great.

So, I am told that the best VoIP phone available is the Polycom, and I
started researching them.

Disappointment Number One: I find out that Polycom has a policy of
only allowing special people, priests of some sort, to access their
sacred firmware. Well, I guess that if their quality is as good as
they say, they are entitled to be arrogant and unfriendly to
customers. Call them Soup Nazis.

Disappointment Number Two: (and as opposed to #1, this is a biggie) It
seems that most Polycom phones do not have a web server built in. I
simply couldn't believe this. One of my concern is the dialplan. With
Linksys, it offers a lot of flexibility with the phone making decision
as to which gateway to connect, etc., etc. OTOH, even the top of the
line Polycoms: all they have is the crummy low res display as a
configuring interface.

Both brands can be auto-provisioned.

Is it fair to say that Linksys has much more expertise in HTTP,
routing, Internet, while Polycom is the standard as far as voice
quality??

Comments, opinions?

-Ramon


home networking made easy, greater protection, less stress, introducing nm 5.0, 728x90
Posted by Trendkill on September 26, 2007, 7:20 am
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> I am very familiar with the Sipura/Linksys line of ATAs and some of
> the phones. My problem is that I am offering to replace traditional
> PBXs with an Asterisk-based PBX. Many of those customers are used to
> brand names like Avaya and would like to have a top brand, nice
> looking, with the best audio, etc. phone sets.
>
> Frankly speaking, the SPA941 looks kind of cheap, and its sound is not
> that great.
>
> So, I am told that the best VoIP phone available is the Polycom, and I
> started researching them.
>
> Disappointment Number One: I find out that Polycom has a policy of
> only allowing special people, priests of some sort, to access their
> sacred firmware. Well, I guess that if their quality is as good as
> they say, they are entitled to be arrogant and unfriendly to
> customers. Call them Soup Nazis.
>
> Disappointment Number Two: (and as opposed to #1, this is a biggie) It
> seems that most Polycom phones do not have a web server built in. I
> simply couldn't believe this. One of my concern is the dialplan. With
> Linksys, it offers a lot of flexibility with the phone making decision
> as to which gateway to connect, etc., etc. OTOH, even the top of the
> line Polycoms: all they have is the crummy low res display as a
> configuring interface.
>
> Both brands can be auto-provisioned.
>
> Is it fair to say that Linksys has much more expertise in HTTP,
> routing, Internet, while Polycom is the standard as far as voice
> quality??
>
> Comments, opinions?
>
> -Ramon

Not sure on the others, but I run a Cisco 7960 on asterisk at home and
it works great. Might be a little high on price, but definitely has
the 'shiny & new' effect. As for your other question, you need to go
with the features you need first, and then the look/feel later. From
my perspective, voice quality is always first, followed by the nice-to-
haves, and nothing should be considered that doesn't have the features
you need at your site. Polycom units are very nice, and they have
been in voice (mostly analog) for a very long time. I agree with your
comments on linksys, but they are indeed owned by Cisco which help
mitigates that question. Quality and features over look and feel any
day. And don't forget usability. Difficulty for admins is one pain,
but difficulty for customers/associates is a much larger problem.


Posted by Rod Dorman on September 26, 2007, 2:08 pm
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> ... Polycom units are very nice, and they have
>been in voice (mostly analog) for a very long time.

If your primary consideration is voice quality theres no question that
Polycom should be high on the list of contenders. We sprung for a
Polycom IP4000 for our conference room and haven't regretted the
choice.

--
                                        -- Rod --
rodd(at)polylogics(dot)com

Posted by bvlmv on September 28, 2007, 8:21 am
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On Sep 26, 2:08 pm, r...@panix.com (Rod Dorman) wrote:
>
> > ... Polycom units are very nice, and they have
> >been in voice (mostly analog) for a very long time.
>
> If your primary consideration is voice quality theres no question that
> Polycom should be high on the list of contenders. We sprung for a
> Polycom IP4000 for our conference room and haven't regretted the
> choice.
>
> --
> -- Rod --
> rodd(at)polylogics(dot)com

Polycom and Cisco's firmware are pretty stable now-a-days and most
voice quality issues are network or backhaul related.


Posted by gery on October 21, 2007, 11:22 pm
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My VoIP phone supports SIP and IAX2 very well.
And it supports Auto provisioning.
Welcome to check at http://www.chinaroby.com


Ramon F Herrera wrote:



> I am very familiar with the Sipura/Linksys line of ATAs and some of
> the phones. My problem is that I am offering to replace traditional
> PBXs with an Asterisk-based PBX. Many of those customers are used to
> brand names like Avaya and would like to have a top brand, nice
> looking, with the best audio, etc. phone sets.

> Frankly speaking, the SPA941 looks kind of cheap, and its sound is not
> that great.

> So, I am told that the best VoIP phone available is the Polycom, and I
> started researching them.

> Disappointment Number One: I find out that Polycom has a policy of
> only allowing special people, priests of some sort, to access their
> sacred firmware. Well, I guess that if their quality is as good as
> they say, they are entitled to be arrogant and unfriendly to
> customers. Call them Soup Nazis.

> Disappointment Number Two: (and as opposed to #1, this is a biggie) It
> seems that most Polycom phones do not have a web server built in. I
> simply couldn't believe this. One of my concern is the dialplan. With
> Linksys, it offers a lot of flexibility with the phone making decision
> as to which gateway to connect, etc., etc. OTOH, even the top of the
> line Polycoms: all they have is the crummy low res display as a
> configuring interface.

> Both brands can be auto-provisioned.

> Is it fair to say that Linksys has much more expertise in HTTP,
> routing, Internet, while Polycom is the standard as far as voice
> quality??

> Comments, opinions?

> -Ramon




--


******************************
Gery Jiao

Roby Tech. Co., Ltd.

Skype : gery668
Web: http://www.chinaroby.com
Email: info@chinaroby.com
Tel : 86-755-83843088
******************************





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