I wholeheartedly agree. I'm only implementing the Cisco phones now. While they are more expensive the quality of the calls are amazing and just makes clients happier overall. Plus the Services menu allows for integration with any system you'd like, which is really cool.
One thing to note, even though the SPA-942 has the extra ethernet port, I've been told that it's only 10mb, so if you're planning on using that it will limit your computer's connection speed to your 100+mb. - Ian On 2/22/06, Leif Madsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On 2/21/06, Chad Kempt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I've just started looking into adding telephony via asterisk to my > > business offerings. Before I can consider that I need to implement the > > technology in my own office here and use it for a while. Could you > > please recommend a couple of different phone models at different price > > points that make the best use of asterisk? > > Look at the new Linksys SPA-942 offerings. Its basically (it is) the > guts of the old Sipura phones, but now with tasty Cisco style plastic, > backlit display and two port bridge (for connecting your computer via > the phone). > > I think retail price is around the $150 range, allows you 2 lines (4 > with software "upgrade"), and is just a nice looking phone all around. > For the price range, I'd say it's definately the best bang-for-buck. > > Other phones I like include the Cisco 7960 (6 lines) and 7940 (2 > lines) [expensive], and the Polycom IP501 (3 lines) and IP601 (6 > lines) (less expensive, but more than the SPA-942). The Polycoms are > (in my opinion) ugly phones, but work fairly well as long as you avoid > the web GUI config at all costs (that means you need to use TFTP or > some other remote configuration option). > > The speaker phone will be MUCH better on the Cisco and Polycom phones, > but I think the SPA-942 has improved on the old speaker phone and made > it usable now. My opinion is that the Cisco has a much cleaner > sounding speaker (microphone is nearly identical, so you won't sound > any different to the other end with either phone, but if you need to > listen to someone talk, the speaker in the Cisco is much nicer -- the > Polycom has WAY too much mids and not enough highs and can make the > person you're speaking to sound very muffled). > > Hope that helps! See you guys at the meet tonight! > > -- > Leif Madsen. > http://www.leifmadsen.com > http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/asterisk > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >
