What is a good IP Phone to get?

fonestar1978

Hi, just wondering what is a good IP phone to get? I am running PBX in a Flash (Asterisk based of course). I am sick of messing with trying to get Cisco phones to play nicely with SIP.

Is there any reason why Cisco just doesn't let you go to a web-interface to configure their phones? Is anyone (not including techs) going to bother to edit .cnf and .xml files, show hidden file extensions and then install tftp? Oh... and then spend another two days trying to figure out why it doesn't register in Asterisk and then charge you for support and licensing?

This seems like a brilliant strategy to let your competition sell more phones! This is something that should really take two minutes to do. Some things are best done from the command line and this ain't one of them!!

mikem2te

fonestar1978 wrote: »

Is there any reason why Cisco just doesn't let you go to a web-interface to configure their phones? Is anyone (not including techs) going to bother to edit .cnf and .xml files, show hidden file extensions and then install tftp?

In a native Cisco environment personally I think the way Cisco does things is pretty good, from a manageability point of view it works well. To provision Cisco phones in a live environment all you need to know is the phones mac-address and then enter this into Call Manager. Call Manager, TFTP etc does the rest including upgrading firmware.

In a SIP environment they are more of a challenge - agreed, but SCCP is Cisco's main interest, not SIP.


I bought a Mitel 5235 when I was dabbling with asterisk. Works ok, you can even browse the web on it although the experience isn't the best.

fonestar1978

but damn, I really like the way the Cisco phones look! Seems to me having the phones look for their config in a TFTP server is introducing one more potential point of failure that isn't necessary. A smarter way would be to install updated firmware when people aren't using the phones.

I'm just like any kid with a new toy, I want it working now!

tiersten

fonestar1978 wrote: »

Seems to me having the phones look for their config in a TFTP server is introducing one more potential point of failure that isn't necessary.

As opposed to having a proprietary mechanism that you're stuck with? TFTP is a well known and widespread mechanism for doing updates and configuration.

fonestar1978 wrote: »

A smarter way would be to install updated firmware when people aren't using the phones.

You can get CallManager to force an update to all phones.

mikem2te

fonestar1978 wrote: »

but damn, I really like the way the Cisco phones look! Seems to me having the phones look for their config in a TFTP server is introducing one more potential point of failure that isn't necessary. A smarter way would be to install updated firmware when people aren't using the phones.

I'm just like any kid with a new toy, I want it working now!

Yeah, I like the feel of Cisco phones, they can take a hammering and then come back for more. It is a point of failure but as TFTP runs as part of call manager it's not that big.

Also imagine provisioning 100 of these beasts, simply unbox the phone, create the ephone in call manager using the mac address (even use a barcode scanner to avoid mistakes) then plug it in. All the config is auto, using CDP for vlan config, DHCP for addressing and TFTP for configuration and firmware.

Now do the same configuring phones manually using a web interface. Unbox the phone, plug it in, wait for it to boot, wait for it to get an IP address, login to the web interface, change the password, configure vlans, configure the voice server ip address, give it its' identity, change the hostname, test. Then finally go around the 10% that were configured incorrectly.

The TFTP method really is cool.

kalebksp

fonestar1978 wrote: »

Hi, just wondering what is a good IP phone to get? I am running PBX in a Flash (Asterisk based of course). I am sick of messing with trying to get Cisco phones to play nicely with SIP.

Depends on whether you want a nice IP phone or a cheap IP phone. I've used Polycom before, which are very good and have a great speakerphone (I think some of Cisco's conference phone are rebranded Polycom). Aastra's are supposed to be good too. Grandstream's are cheap and work fine, but the audio quality is sub-par.