On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 17:13:39 +1100, Rudolf Ladyzhenskii <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi, all > > I am in Australia and I have to setup Asterisk in few offices. There will be > IP phones in each office and I must be able to call between offices. > > I need actual handsets. I need "standard" handsets to be used by people. > Those must support features like CID, call forward, etc. --- your normal > office feature set. > Also I need some sort of more complex handset to be used by receptionist. > > The main problem is that I am in Australia and I need to get phones that can > be sourced in Australia. (correct power supplies, certified for australia, > etc..) > > I did look at supported h/w list and I am going to go through all of those > companies, but I have no idea on how good/bad those phones are. I really need > some advise here.
The Cisco 79xx range of IP phones (including 7905G, 7940G and 7960G) work just fine in Australia, and have an A-Tick. The CP-PWR-CUBE= is the official power pack, which works with any standard IEC computer power cable. There's also a cheaper generic power pack available from some retailers, or if you have a Cisco PWR switch you can use Cisco PoE. The three types allow one to match the phone to a person's calling requirements. I typically buy my phones from Techtopia (http://www.techtopia.com.au). Buying locally means that there aren't any issues with power supplies, customs, etc. I've tried two types of phones - Grandstream BT-101 and the Ciscos. The Grandstream is useless for any serious calling, and would not be recommended for a receptionist. We've had it do all sorts of nasty things including putting a call on hold indefinitely when trying to transfer. One particular version of the firmware also caused problems with our network. It's also necessary to press "send" after dialing a number (or wait for the timeout). No A-Tick either. The Cisco phones do their job brilliantly - they also look very nice aesthetically. They're exceptionally easy to use with softkeys guiding one through tasks such as transfer, etc. The 7960 phone is perfect for a receptionist - it supports a headset (as does the 7940), and can have up to 12 simultaneous calls over 6 'lines'. One can also configure a dial plan on the Cisco phones, so that calls progress automatically when the correct number of digits has been entered (eg: 0 02 5551 5551). I spent around an hour testing the Polycom IP500 and IP600 phones nearly two years ago (when my interest in VoIP was picking up). They seem quite nice, but i don't have any of these deployed. I refuse to - Polycom won't sell them to people for use with Asterisk, and I'm not going to buy products from a company that try and dictate how I use their product. -Shaun _______________________________________________ Asterisk-Users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
