On Thursday 13 July 2006 12:37, Tony Davis wrote: > Has anyone tried to use any of the new WiFi handsets from the likes of > UTStarcom, Dlink, Linksys, etc, with Asterisk?
I've tried the F1000G. Stay away from it for business environment. Should work fine for home use though. It's small which is great, but the keys are constructed so you need to practically use a pinky to dial properly (or maybe I'm just too big?). The cutesy ringers are idiotic, the web interface sucks hairy goat nad and the USB charging seems to only work worth a damn with the charger, not a USB connection to a PC. (My hub is powered and charges the Treo just fine.) It is awfully quiet, too, and centralized deployment requires a proprieatry, Win32-only config file construction tool. And then we get into the wifi stack that randomly decides it won't talk to the AP anymore and the phone needs to be reset... no warning, just suddenly you don't get calls and when you go to make a call it says it can't find the AP... It doesn't try to reconnect if it loses the AP, it just hangs... excellent feature, that. Actually the original wifi phone, the Pulver WiSIP, is damn near the same thing, right down to the bugs. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same phone, just rebranded and with an 802.11g radio instead. I'm waiting on the Siemens GIGA-SL75 from VoipSupply... backordered but I get weekly updates telling me it's coming... :-) I haven't tried but have heard so-so reports on the DLink ones. Cisco is supposed to be good, but very pricey and craptastic talk time. I am really looking for a frickin' basic wifi phone with SOLID wifi and SIP stacks (that means programmable ring by ALERT-INFO, folks!), WDS and roaming capable, 2.5mm headset (optional BT variant), vibrate, loud, PROGRAMMABLE, DOWNLOADABLE (not MP3s, real ringers!) ringtones, (programmable combination of ring, vibe, vibe then ring, and simultaneous), centralized address book and finally, some kind of softbutton programmability/accessibility. I want a damn Polycom DHCP and (T)FTP centralized configuration too. None of this proprietary bullshit. Why do wifi phone manufacturers always, always leave out anything remotely useful and instead ram through cheapass phones that half-ass work and have a dozen cutesy musical ringtones that have no place in an office and OMG WOW LOL WTFBBQ PONIES! downloadable idle screen animations!??!! Where's my medication?! This subject angries up the blood! -A.
