[olug] Which Asterisk?

[Neal R]

    How much are the Polycom? I've got probably a dozen Cisco phones if
I start digging and Ebay still wants 'em.



Phil Brutsche wrote:
> Luke-Jr wrote:
>   
>> In my experience, Cisco stuff is generally "looks nice, has a huge reputation, 
>> but sucks a lot in reality"-- especially when it comes to their phones. The 
>> SIP firmware tends to be the "we make it because we have to" and doesn't get 
>> the attention that the SCCP firmware does.
>>     
>
> When it comes to SIP phones Cisco is bottom of the barrel and is only
> barely better than a bare-bones Grandstream, the only reason people use
> Cisco 7940 and 7960 phones is Cisco's reputation for equipment that
> largely doesn't suck.
>
> Of course, you need get past the proprietary nature of their
> interoperability protocols (spanning trees, link aggregation groups,
> etc) first.
>
> Me? Bitter about Cisco?  Naaaah
>
>   
>> That said, at work we use only Cisco IP phones (and I'm the one stuck 
>> supporting them). So I can't comment on Snom or other products-- for all I 
>> know they could be even worse, but I tend to doubt it.
>>     
>
> You might be surprised how much a lot of VoIP stuff sucks.
>
> That's why I suggested Polycom - I know they *don't* suck, and one
> absolutely MUST HAVE feature on the Asterisk box at work (intercom aka
> paging) works gracefully with Polycom and a very small list of others.
>
> PS I LOATH Asterisk. I miss our old Nortel BCM, it expensive and
> complicated to set up but at least the features it supports works
> reliably - with Asterisk call forwarding absolutely CANNOT be used in
> conjunction with paging (Asterisk speak: intercom) or hunt groups
> (Asterisk speak: ring groups).
>
>