Re: [SLUG] recommended ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk?
On Wednesday 03 January 2007 14:40, Howard Lowndes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote: On Wednesday 03 January 2007 10:07, Howard Lowndes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote: Grandstream phones are widely known for being cheap and nasty. I strongly suggest that you avoid them. The gxp2000 shown in the above-linked page is a classic example. I've got a number of them out there with no problems. Be more specific. The company I work for has deployed many Grandstream GXP2000 handsets, both internally and for customers. We have experienced a range of problems with them, ranging from poor call quality to crashes and spontaneous rebooting. I myself use one every day and am far from happy. I believe call quality was a function of the software version. Mine are running 1.1.1.7 which is quite acceptable. There is a problem with the software not responding to ICMP MTU limit messages, which GS are aware of. We have been deploying the Grandstream GXP2000 for well over a year, trialling different versions of firmware along the way. We never found a version that we considered to be reliable. You don't want to trust your business to a telephone that could crash in the middle of a conversation, believe me. The problem with many VoIP manufacturers is that they have an electronics and not a telephony background. Companies which have proven track records in telecommunications are far more likely to produce a product that is reliable and better tailored to suit the needs of consumers, particularly in the corporate space. -- Windows XP is not an operating system. It is a windowing system that sits atop an operating system much as KDE or Gnome sit atop Linux. - Robert X. Cringely, 2003-01-16 pgpsgKC6jx6qt.pgp Description: PGP signature -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] recommended ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk?
Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote: The problem with many VoIP manufacturers is that they have an electronics and not a telephony background. Companies which have proven track records in telecommunications are far more likely to produce a product that is reliable and better tailored to suit the needs of consumers, particularly in the corporate space. I concur with Sridhar. During my days at Cisco in 2000 they did the huge we're all going VOIP internally rollout, to eat their own dogfood. Even with the entire company relying on it, even with executives badgering them, even with all the experience and talent available in Cisco's own internal network operations groups, they STILL took 6 months to really bring the phone system back to fixed-line levels of stability. The first month was utter hell. Telephony is HARD. So go with experience when you can. Adam K -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] recommended ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk?
On 03/01/07, Adam Kennedy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: During my days at Cisco in 2000 they did the huge we're all going VOIP internally rollout, to eat their own dogfood. Even with the entire company relying on it, even with executives badgering them, even with all the experience and talent available in Cisco's own internal network operations groups, they STILL took 6 months to really bring the phone system back to fixed-line levels of stability. Not that I'm familiar with the market that much, but didn't all this exercise eventually result in a product with all the wrinkles ironed out? --Amos -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] recommended ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk?
What are people's recommendations for an ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk? The book I'm reading (OReilly's Switching to VoIP) talks about a Grandstream Budgetone - what's an Australian equivalent? What about a recommended PCI card so Asterisk can communicate with the POTS? The book mentions Digium X100P. I know I don't need both; I want to experiment. I attended the SLUG talk on VoIP - back then a lot of it didn't make sense so I didn't take notes :-) -- Sonia Hamilton. GPG key A8B77238. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] recommended ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk?
On 02/01/2007, at 7:38 PM, Sonia Hamilton wrote: What are people's recommendations for an ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk? The book I'm reading (OReilly's Switching to VoIP) talks about a Grandstream Budgetone - what's an Australian equivalent? You can buy a Grandstream VoIP phone from the site below; http://www.techtopia.com.au/index.php/cPath/36_60 What about a recommended PCI card so Asterisk can communicate with the POTS? The book mentions Digium X100P. techtopia also sells Digium cards. I know I don't need both; I want to experiment. I attended the SLUG talk on VoIP - back then a lot of it didn't make sense so I didn't take notes :-) You don't need both, and you don't need either for testing. You could just grab a usb or audio headset and install a softphone (aka softwarephone) which can use the headset for conversation using your computer. But it means you will be able to test the asterisk setup without the need to buy any hardware just yet. Of course this test will not allow you to hook up your existing landline to the asterisk setup. -- Sonia Hamilton. GPG key A8B77238. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] recommended ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk?
On Tuesday 02 January 2007 20:47, Michael Fox [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 02/01/2007, at 7:38 PM, Sonia Hamilton wrote: What are people's recommendations for an ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk? The book I'm reading (OReilly's Switching to VoIP) talks about a Grandstream Budgetone - what's an Australian equivalent? You can buy a Grandstream VoIP phone from the site below; http://www.techtopia.com.au/index.php/cPath/36_60 Grandstream phones are widely known for being cheap and nasty. I strongly suggest that you avoid them. The gxp2000 shown in the above-linked page is a classic example. -- Yes, we want you to knife the baby. - Microsoft official Christopher Phillips to Apple executives, 1997 pgpIgr4G79mL5.pgp Description: PGP signature -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] recommended ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk?
On Tue, Jan 02, 2007 at 09:02:27PM +1100, Howard Lowndes wrote: I am looking at going down the same path, looking/playing with asterix. And there seems to be a familiar choice. 1) to either cable every thing back to a PC (make it into a PC/PABX), with digium cards or 2) Buy voip phones, that connect directly to ethernet or 3) Buy converters like the supuria spa3000 to convert analogue lines into voip (ethernet) I think option 1 is probably the way to go for a small business, nice and simple to replace a pabx, the old cable would probably work. But I see that it is limited by the number of slots in the machine and how dense the digium cards can be made - is the current 4 ports to a card the highest density available ? option 2 mean a whole new investment on phones and probably new wiring as the old telco wiring isn't cat5 compliant, some place it is, most house it wouldn't be option 3 seem like the simplest way forward, the path I have tried out at my parents (quick and dirty entry into voip), the spa3000 has voip and pstn access. And it looks like you can connect it to a asterix server (yet for me to do). But what it has allowed me to do, is get easy access to voip, simply unplugged the phone cable from the wall and place the spa3000 in between the phone and the wall. also connected it to the network, done. My next step is to actually get some voip phones, I noticed recent there are wireless handsets (802.11b/g) becoming available this interests me? Can somebody maybe enlighten me why people have chosen option 1 Also I believe somebody was trying to set up a VOIP mailing list Alex Sonia Hamilton wrote: What are people's recommendations for an ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk? The book I'm reading (OReilly's Switching to VoIP) talks about a Grandstream Budgetone - what's an Australian equivalent? The GS Budgetone is available in AU from Australian Technology Partnership http://www.austechpartnerships.com/atp/ I have one and I also have the GS GXP2000, also available from ATP. Although this is more expensive I believe it is better especially for corporate use. If you're going to get the GS BT then get the 102, not the 101, as the former has a builtin 10mbps Ethernet hub so you can put the phone in line with your PC. I see that there is also a BT200 model, there is also a video model in the GXP range if your pocket is deep :) What about a recommended PCI card so Asterisk can communicate with the POTS? The book mentions Digium X100P. I use the Digium TDM400P. It will allow 4 daughter modules which can be any mix of none/FXS/FXO. You will need an FXO (red) module for each incoming analogue line and an FXS (green) module for each fax/cordless/analogue phone you wish to use on your local system. I know I don't need both; I want to experiment. With the GS GXP2000 it has the ability to be programmed as a router in addition to being a phone so you can have a whole intranet running off it. I attended the SLUG talk on VoIP - back then a lot of it didn't make sense so I didn't take notes :-) When you have sorted out your mail server you can contact me off list if you want more info. :) -- Howard. LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people http://lannetlinux.com When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux; When you want a computer system that works, just, choose Microsoft. -- Flatter government, not fatter government; abolish the Australian states. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html signature.asc Description: Digital signature -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] recommended ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk?
* On Wed, Jan 03, 2007 at 07:41:57AM +1100, Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote: On Tuesday 02 January 2007 20:47, Michael Fox [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 02/01/2007, at 7:38 PM, Sonia Hamilton wrote: What are people's recommendations for an ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk? The book I'm reading (OReilly's Switching to VoIP) talks about a Grandstream Budgetone - what's an Australian equivalent? You can buy a Grandstream VoIP phone from the site below; http://www.techtopia.com.au/index.php/cPath/36_60 Grandstream phones are widely known for being cheap and nasty. I strongly suggest that you avoid them. The gxp2000 shown in the above-linked page is a classic example. That's why I emailed, to hear people's opinions :-) What ip phones do you recommend instead? -- Sonia Hamilton. GPG key A8B77238. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] recommended ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk?
Sonia Hamilton wrote: What are people's recommendations for an ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk? The book I'm reading (OReilly's Switching to VoIP) talks about a Grandstream Budgetone - what's an Australian equivalent? What about a recommended PCI card so Asterisk can communicate with the POTS? The book mentions Digium X100P. I know I don't need both; I want to experiment. I attended the SLUG talk on VoIP - back then a lot of it didn't make sense so I didn't take notes :-) You've got a few options here. - A softphone. Runs on your PC, uses SIP to talk to Asterisk. ekiga and linphone are great for this. - An analogue telephony adaptor (ATA). A little box you plug in to your LAN and lets you connect a regular analogue handset to your voip system. Again, uses SIP to talk to Asterisk. I use a Sipura SP2000 with a cheap cordless phone at home, and it works great. - A Digium PCI card. The X100P you mentioned only seems to have an FXO port, but you can get models with both FXO and FXS ports - they'll let you connect to the POTS network as well as plug in one or two analogue handsets. - An IP telephone. Again, most use the SIP protocol, but there's one or two that are starting to come out that understand IAX. I'll agree with others and say the Grandstreams are a bit dinky. But I don't have any recommendations about *good* IP handsets. :-) If you're just experimenting, I'd say stick to a softphone until you get everything sorted out. After that, well, there's not too much difference in price between an ATA and an IP handset, and the feature set is much the same unless you throw buckets of money at an IP phone (my knowledge here is a good six months out of date, though, so things might be different). Finally, O'Reilly's Asterisk: The Future of Telephony is an awesome book on how to drive asterisk, and it's under a creative commons licence - narf a copy from http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk:+The+Future+of+Telephony -- Pete -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] recommended ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk?
On Wed, Jan 03, 2007 at 10:06:07AM +1100, Howard Lowndes wrote: Alex Samad wrote: On Tue, Jan 02, 2007 at 09:02:27PM +1100, Howard Lowndes wrote: I am looking at going down the same path, looking/playing with asterix. And there seems to be a familiar choice. 1) to either cable every thing back to a PC (make it into a PC/PABX), with digium cards or 2) Buy voip phones, that connect directly to ethernet or 3) Buy converters like the supuria spa3000 to convert analogue lines into voip (ethernet) I think option 1 is probably the way to go for a small business, nice and simple to replace a pabx, the old cable would probably work. But I see that it is limited by the number of slots in the machine and how dense the digium cards can be made - is the current 4 ports to a card the highest density available ? No, Digium have 24 port cards available. option 2 mean a whole new investment on phones and probably new wiring as the old telco wiring isn't cat5 compliant, some place it is, most house it wouldn't be New phones at $181 for the GC GXP2000 and the cabling is probably already in place as Cat 5, and you don't need more as IP phones can act as hubs and there's nothing wrong with wifi connects either. option 3 seem like the simplest way forward, the path I have tried out at my parents (quick and dirty entry into voip), the spa3000 has voip and pstn access. And it looks like you can connect it to a asterix server (yet for me to do). But what it has allowed me to do, is get easy access to voip, simply unplugged the phone cable from the wall and place the spa3000 in between the phone and the wall. also connected it to the network, done. My next step is to actually get some voip phones, I noticed recent there are wireless handsets (802.11b/g) becoming available this interests me? You do lose some functionality by retaining analogue handsets. can you expand on this please Can somebody maybe enlighten me why people have chosen option 1 They shouldn't be. Also I believe somebody was trying to set up a VOIP mailing list Alex Sonia Hamilton wrote: What are people's recommendations for an ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk? The book I'm reading (OReilly's Switching to VoIP) talks about a Grandstream Budgetone - what's an Australian equivalent? The GS Budgetone is available in AU from Australian Technology Partnership http://www.austechpartnerships.com/atp/ I have one and I also have the GS GXP2000, also available from ATP. Although this is more expensive I believe it is better especially for corporate use. If you're going to get the GS BT then get the 102, not the 101, as the former has a builtin 10mbps Ethernet hub so you can put the phone in line with your PC. I see that there is also a BT200 model, there is also a video model in the GXP range if your pocket is deep :) What about a recommended PCI card so Asterisk can communicate with the POTS? The book mentions Digium X100P. I use the Digium TDM400P. It will allow 4 daughter modules which can be any mix of none/FXS/FXO. You will need an FXO (red) module for each incoming analogue line and an FXS (green) module for each fax/cordless/analogue phone you wish to use on your local system. I know I don't need both; I want to experiment. With the GS GXP2000 it has the ability to be programmed as a router in addition to being a phone so you can have a whole intranet running off it. I attended the SLUG talk on VoIP - back then a lot of it didn't make sense so I didn't take notes :-) When you have sorted out your mail server you can contact me off list if you want more info. :) -- Howard. LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people http://lannetlinux.com When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux; When you want a computer system that works, just, choose Microsoft. -- Flatter government, not fatter government; abolish the Australian states. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- Howard. LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people http://lannetlinux.com When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux; When you want a computer system that works, just, choose Microsoft. -- Flatter government, not fatter government; abolish the Australian states. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html signature.asc Description: Digital signature -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] recommended ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk?
On Wednesday 03 January 2007 08:16, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What are people's recommendations for an ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk? The book I'm reading (OReilly's Switching to VoIP) talks about a Grandstream Budgetone - what's an Australian equivalent? What about a recommended PCI card so Asterisk can communicate with the POTS? The book mentions Digium X100P. I know I don't need both; I want to experiment. I attended the SLUG talk on VoIP - back then a lot of it didn't make sense so I didn't take notes :-) You've got a few options here. [snip] Out of bona fide curiosity, and without casting opinions, why would I as a home user be interested in any way in VOIP. I do use skype to overseas friends/family and for them a POTS handset would be a PITA, also Rome was not built in one day! 50% of them are winders-only. All opinions welcome, but I need to say cost is not an issue: 60% of my phone acct is the landline that I need for ADSL. James -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] recommended ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk?
On Tue, Jan 02, 2007 at 07:38:26PM +1100, Sonia Hamilton wrote: I know I don't need both; I want to experiment. I attended the SLUG talk on VoIP - back then a lot of it didn't make sense so I didn't take notes :-) I've finally gotten around to putting up the slides :) http://inodes.org/blog/2007/01/03/slug-voip-slides/ -- John http://www.inodes.org/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] recommended ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk?
On 03/01/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Out of bona fide curiosity, and without casting opinions, why would I as a home user be interested in any way in VOIP. 1. It's just plain MUCH cheaper even for local calls in Australia (I use iiNet, which isn't the cheapest but that's what I started with, and all my calls are cheaper than the POTS line - local, 13 numbers, all australian metros and international. 2. I use Skype to call overseas too but Skype requires me to seat in front of my computer to talk to people and we virtually never hear it when people call us (we have headsets both to keep the house quiter and to avoid feedback loops). (Skype is supposed to support having the ring on one card (to which we can connect loudspeakers) and another on the headphones but I have troubles to make things work with my on-board sound card). 3. Skype phones that I've seen so far require Windows, which I am glad to say I don't have at home (my wife's ancient win98 laptop which is beginning to behave recently doesn't count). I do use skype to overseas friends/family and for them a POTS handset would be a PITA, also Rome was not built in one day! 50% of them are winders-only. What do you mean? They prefer using skype with speaker/mic rather than plain old phone handset? Then it's probably a matter of taste and lifestyle - personally I prefer to hold a handset and be mobile around the house than stuck in the office, and my family abroad isn't the kind you can always catch in front of their computer 24/7. All opinions welcome, but I need to say cost is not an issue: 60% of my phone acct is the landline that I need for ADSL. VoIP calls cut down our calls bill by about 90% (just the variable part we pay for the call themselves, most of my phone line bill goes for the fixed parts like line rental and ADSL service). There are numerous forums about Australian VoIP offerings, maybe you should dig them (let me know if you want me to send you some pointers I collected). Cheers, --P -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] recommended ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk?
Penedo wrote: 2. I use Skype to call overseas too but Skype requires me to seat in front of my computer to talk to people and we virtually never hear it when people call us (we have headsets both to keep the house quiter and to avoid feedback loops). (Skype is supposed to support having the ring on one card (to which we can connect loudspeakers) and another on the headphones but I have troubles to make things work with my on-board sound card). For what it's worth, there's a proprietary Asterisk channel driver for Skype available from http://www.chanskype.com/ , and the voip-info.org guys have a bounty for an open equivalent. In theory, that'll let you call skype users from anything connected to your asterisk server. They've got a comprehensive list of assorted Skype gateways at http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Skype+Gateways In addition, I had problems getting skype to use a separate soundcard for the ringtone as well, but since upgrading to the 1.3 beta for Linux (which uses ALSA instead of OSS), this seems to be resolved. -- Pete -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] recommended ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk?
* On Wed, Jan 03, 2007 at 08:43:43AM +0900, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You've got a few options here. [snip] Out of bona fide curiosity, and without casting opinions, why would I as a home user be interested in any way in VOIP. * for calling relatives who are interstate/overseas * like many things IT, I find experimenting at home is a good way to learn, I can then sell my skills to customers :) -- Sonia Hamilton. GPG key A8B77238. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] recommended ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk?
On Wednesday 03 January 2007 10:07, Howard Lowndes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote: On Tuesday 02 January 2007 20:47, Michael Fox [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 02/01/2007, at 7:38 PM, Sonia Hamilton wrote: What are people's recommendations for an ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk? The book I'm reading (OReilly's Switching to VoIP) talks about a Grandstream Budgetone - what's an Australian equivalent? You can buy a Grandstream VoIP phone from the site below; http://www.techtopia.com.au/index.php/cPath/36_60 Grandstream phones are widely known for being cheap and nasty. I strongly suggest that you avoid them. The gxp2000 shown in the above-linked page is a classic example. I've got a number of them out there with no problems. Be more specific. The company I work for has deployed many Grandstream GXP2000 handsets, both internally and for customers. We have experienced a range of problems with them, ranging from poor call quality to crashes and spontaneous rebooting. I myself use one every day and am far from happy. These days, we ship phones from other providers, such as Polycom. -- If you set a man by a fire, you keep him warm all day, but set a man on fire and you keep him warm the rest of his life. - Terry Pratchett pgpodu3K3ylzO.pgp Description: PGP signature -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] recommended ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk?
An ATA lets u use existing telephones, if you have some that you currently like. For a single line in house something like the sipura 3000 is simple and small and easy Ken Peter Hardy wrote: Sonia Hamilton wrote: What are people's recommendations for an ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk? The book I'm reading (OReilly's Switching to VoIP) talks about a Grandstream Budgetone - what's an Australian equivalent? What about a recommended PCI card so Asterisk can communicate with the POTS? The book mentions Digium X100P. I know I don't need both; I want to experiment. I attended the SLUG talk on VoIP - back then a lot of it didn't make sense so I didn't take notes :-) You've got a few options here. - A softphone. Runs on your PC, uses SIP to talk to Asterisk. ekiga and linphone are great for this. - An analogue telephony adaptor (ATA). A little box you plug in to your LAN and lets you connect a regular analogue handset to your voip system. Again, uses SIP to talk to Asterisk. I use a Sipura SP2000 with a cheap cordless phone at home, and it works great. - A Digium PCI card. The X100P you mentioned only seems to have an FXO port, but you can get models with both FXO and FXS ports - they'll let you connect to the POTS network as well as plug in one or two analogue handsets. - An IP telephone. Again, most use the SIP protocol, but there's one or two that are starting to come out that understand IAX. I'll agree with others and say the Grandstreams are a bit dinky. But I don't have any recommendations about *good* IP handsets. :-) If you're just experimenting, I'd say stick to a softphone until you get everything sorted out. After that, well, there's not too much difference in price between an ATA and an IP handset, and the feature set is much the same unless you throw buckets of money at an IP phone (my knowledge here is a good six months out of date, though, so things might be different). Finally, O'Reilly's Asterisk: The Future of Telephony is an awesome book on how to drive asterisk, and it's under a creative commons licence - narf a copy from http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk:+The+Future+of+Telephony -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Re: [SLUG] recommended ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk?
Howard Lowndes wrote: Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote: On Tuesday 02 January 2007 20:47, Michael Fox [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 02/01/2007, at 7:38 PM, Sonia Hamilton wrote: What are people's recommendations for an ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk? The book I'm reading (OReilly's Switching to VoIP) talks about a Grandstream Budgetone - what's an Australian equivalent? You can buy a Grandstream VoIP phone from the site below; http://www.techtopia.com.au/index.php/cPath/36_60 Grandstream phones are widely known for being cheap and nasty. I strongly suggest that you avoid them. The gxp2000 shown in the above-linked page is a classic example. I've got a number of them out there with no problems. Be more specific. I am using a few Grandstream ATA's with normal phones. I don't suppose aussie phone jacks will work with them without an adapter. Anyway, no problems with the ATA's so far. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] recommended ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk?
An ATA lets u use existing telephones, if you have some that you currently like. For a single line in house something like the sipura 3000 is simple and small and easy Ken I use an ATA: Linksys PAP2 (which has now been superseded with a model that has the same features as a Sipura 3000). When I did have a go at Asterisk I found it quite tiresome tinkering with a web interface. As error messages are quite discreet and don't really help you with solving the problem (in my case learning Asterisk). Recommended in the [EMAIL PROTECTED] (now know as something else) that it's quite handy to use a soft phone when playing with Asterisk, purely for testing. Once it's working configure the IP Phone/ATA. Now I just use MyNetFone: http://www.myfone.com.au/ -- Simon Males [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] recommended ip phone for experimenting with Asterisk?
On Wednesday 03 January 2007 12:21, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Out of bona fide curiosity, and without casting opinions, why would I as a home user be interested in any way in VOIP. 1. It's just plain MUCH cheaper even for local calls in Australia (I use iiNet, which isn't the cheapest but that's what I started with, and all my calls are cheaper than the POTS line - local, 13 numbers, all australian metros and international. 2. I use Skype to call overseas too but Skype requires me to seat in front of my computer to talk to people and we virtually never hear it when people call us (we have headsets both to keep the house quiter and to avoid feedback loops). (Skype is supposed to support having the ring on one card (to which we can connect loudspeakers) and another on the headphones but I have troubles to make things work with my on-board sound card). 3. Skype phones that I've seen so far require Windows, which I am glad to say I don't have at home (my wife's ancient win98 laptop which is beginning to behave recently doesn't count). I do use skype to overseas friends/family and for them a POTS handset would be a PITA, also Rome was not built in one day! 50% of them are winders-only. What do you mean? They prefer using skype with speaker/mic rather than plain old phone handset? Then it's probably a matter of taste and lifestyle - personally I prefer to hold a handset and be mobile around the house than stuck in the office, and my family abroad isn't the kind you can always catch in front of their computer 24/7. All opinions welcome, but I need to say cost is not an issue: 60% of my phone acct is the landline that I need for ADSL. VoIP calls cut down our calls bill by about 90% (just the variable part we pay for the call themselves, most of my phone line bill goes for the fixed parts like line rental and ADSL service). There are numerous forums about Australian VoIP offerings, maybe you should dig them (let me know if you want me to send you some pointers I collected). I would appreciate that. To me if the list is not appropriate. Thanks James -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
