On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 4:34 PM, Dean Yorke <[email protected]> wrote: > 1) What phones are people using these days. polycom, aastra cisco.
Aastra for me. > 2) What phones are best? I don't think there's a consensus on this. Personally I'm running about 80 Aastra 6757is across a few locations and my experience has been good. There are lots of ways to deploy them but I'm using config files over TFTP. I like that the config file options are pretty consistent across the 67xx line of phones so it's not a terrible amount of work to have a mix of different models in the environment. Having said that I decided to go with Aastra a couple of years ago, I've always been impressed with Polycom. The XML config file is a little more machine readable than human readable but that's a big plus if you plan on automating your provisioning. The Polycoms are incredibly configurable down to the most minute details of the interface. You can upload custom ring tones and there are lots of other goodies. A few of people I know who do hosted PBX deploy Polycoms to their customers. If I were deploying again, I'd take a hard look at the Cisco SPA525G2. I had the 525G in my office for a while until I decided that I had better run what my users had on their desks. It has Bluetooth, a USB jack (so you can use it as an MP3 player, or load custom MP3 ringtones), WIFI in case your phone isn't near a plug (great for courtesy phones). It has lots of bells and whistles, but I haven't deployed them so I couldn't comment on manageability, standards compliance or reliability. > 3) virtual PRI vs SIP Trunking. What's the difference or are these buzz > words. > > 4) suggested data throughput for 6 lines. DSL or larger? This depends a lot on your codec. If you're using uLaw, plan on 130kbps per concurrent conversation. That's actual usage so you need some overhead slack. The trick with asymmetrical services like DSL is to look at the upload, not the download. Many '7 Meg' services have only 512 (advertised max, not real-world) upload speeds which means you might not be safe running more than 2 or 3 calls on that circuit at once. If you use a more efficient codec like G.729, you can get many more channels in the same space. Off the top of my head, I think you can get a G.729 call into about 30kbps but I'm wide open to being corrected on that. G.729 requires a paid license on Asterisk. Obviously, QOS is a concern if you're planning to share that DSL line with other traffic like web browsing. Again, watch your upload. All the best, Dave --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
