[geeks] Phone system suggestions?

[Phil Brutsche]

Patrick Giagnocavo 717-201-3366 wrote:
> The Budgetel VOIP phones are what, $65 each at retail (which means
> $6500 for 100)?

You mean the cheap Grandstream phones? Ugh...

That brings out another problem with Asterisk: the phones that are cheap
suck a$$, and the phones that don't suck a$$ cost $$$.

You get what you pay for.

> And even the more expensive VOIP phones will have more features at
> the same price.  Nortel Meridian phones are $175 plus and then you
> still have to punch down the connection and program the switch
> properly...with these phones, you just plug them into Ethernet.

You *still* need to configure the phones. Sure, they use DHCP, but they
need to know details usernames, password, exention numbers, etc for
registering with the SIP server.

Considering the lack of unified configuration tools among SIP phone
systems...

Hell, there are things you *can't* manage on the phones, you have to
walk up to each one (or log into it's HTTP interface) and to it yourself.

Do you really want to configure 96 VoIP phones by hand? Or roll your own
configuration tools to manage them?

Someone responsible for for that many phones shouldn't have to worry
about BS like that.

> The Switchvox stuff looks nice.

Yes it does and it's a good starting point for setting up an Asterisk
phone system for a business... primarily because:

a) They provide telephone support that Asterisk at Home doesn't
b) They provide phone configuration tools Asterisk at Home doesn't

If you are responsible for a phone system for a business of that size
you *really* should look into an established solution (ie Cisco Call
Manager, Nortel MICS, Nortel BCM, Lucent, Avaya, etc) rather than trying
to roll your own. You will thank yourself, your users will thank you,
your bosses will thank you.

Another vote for Nortel, if you can afford it :)

(Former Nortel BCM user currently cursing Asterisk at Home)

-- 

Phil Brutsche
phil at tux.obix.com