Graves On SOHO VoIP

There’s just way too much interesting gear out there for me to try all of it. That’s at least part of the reason why I was happy to read Ruben’s review of the Citel C-4100 IP phone. Back in May he won the phone in a contest on the VoIP Supply blog.

I hope that he makes good on his intention to use the phone to join a VUC call in G.722. At $99 it just might be a good low-end solution to providing a basic wideband capable desk phone. That is, if the handset truly delivers the call quality.

Beyond merely a wideband codec the physical device matters. It needs to be solidly build, with high-quality transducers. I guess we’ll see, or should I say hear, next week.

Some time back the folks over at VoIP Supply posted something about a collection of new SIP Wifi handsets. Whereas in the past that would make me take notice, even catch my interest, I found myself completely disinterested. In fact, it was surprising how little appeal these gadgets had.

Over the years I’ve tried various SIP Wifi handsets and come to a very simple conclusion. That is, for my home office application they have no merit at all. The fact that I have a solid cordless SIP solution eliminates the possible interest that any of these new products might have.

In everything experiment that I’ve ever tried DECT/CATiq products soundly beat any dedicated SIP Wifi handset. Now that there are affordable SIP/DECT products from sources like Gigaset and Snom dedicated VoWifi handsets just don’t measure up for many applications.

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VoIP Supply’s Garrett Smith has an interesting post the other day. Actually, we can cross reference a couple of posts to follow his line of thinking. Firstly, he offers some advice on selecting an analog gateway in a post titled, “Four Keys To A Successful Voip Gateway Purchase.” It’s a good basic overview on VoIP gateways for the beginner.

I’ve made my thoughts on gateway/ATA devices well known in the past (here, here and here). I see them as relics of a prior era of VoIP, and to be avoided if at all possible. However, some people feel that they are truly necessary. Whatever floats your boat.

A little later on over at VoIP Supply’s VoIP Insider Blog Garrett poses the question, “Where Are The Open Source VoIP Gateways?” That is a fine question and one the deserves an answer. It also needs to be broken down a bit to get to a clear answer.

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Just a few days ago VoIP Supply announced a new desk phone that’s capable of both SIP and IAX2. Not much has been forthcoming in the way of IAX2 capable end-points, even though the protocol has wound its way through a lengthy standards process. Digium has dropped the little IAXy (aka S101i)  ATA device a while back. Last year Zeeek tried the Allnet 7960 which is IAX2 capable but lacking in some ways. So it seems that to date there just haven’t been any truly business class IAX2 phones to be had.

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This morning I received an email from VoIP Supply alerting me to the fact that they’ve started offering solutions built around Microsoft Response Point. Personally, I have no experience with Response Point but I hear good things from people who I respect. I expect that they offer a decent product, perhaps with some significantly innovative features for this price class.

Being Microsoft it was easy for them to assemble something of an eco-system around Response Point. The players in that eco-system include some great names like Aastra, & D-Link. For smaller systems, say $3 – 8k Response Point has to be a consideration or you’re not exercising due diligence.

In a semi-related offering, my favorite ITSP, Junction Networks, was recently named a preferred service provider by Microsoft. To Mike & Co I offer my congratulations. That can’t help but ensure the continued growth of their business.

OK, so this is kinda funny. Clicking randomly around someone’s site, as I occasionally do, I stumbled upon Big Web Phone who offers some insight into selecting VoIP services for the absolute beginner. One bit was a little humorous as well as informative.

Kyle Brocious over at the VOIP Insider blog wrote a good post describing as he puts it, “How To: Upload Firmware to a Polycom Unit.”

It’s a solid example of setting up a TFTP server to load new firmware to a Polycom SoundPoint SIP phone. I’ve been doing this for years.

It’s not quite a complete example of provisioning the phone as it doesn’t address loading the phones configuration from XML files on the server.

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Garrett Smith is right on the money in his appraisal of Packet8’s new SIP trunking service. I wonder if anyone sees the paradox in this?

A year ago when I was shopping around for a hosted IP-PBX I looked at Packet8, but they didn’t make the cut. One of the major reasons I couldn’t consider them is that their business class service relied upon an ATA and an analog phone. Apparently it still does. We had a requirement for SIP hard phones in a variety of locations.

This also begs the question, “what’s the difference between a SIP trunk and a hosted IP-PBX that deals with SIP end-points?” What if the SIP end-point is a multi-line capable phone like a Polycom IP601/650 (great devices!) or Aastra 57i CT?

A trunk normally refers to the line between the on-site PBX and the carrier. If there is no on-site PBX then is the line to the SIP phone a trunk? I suspect that a number of ITSPs have been engaged in SOHO “SIP trunking” as their service provides SIP based connectivity and allows n concurrent calls. Could this just be a renaming of an existing service in this market segment?

FWIW, we settled on Junction Networks OnSIP…and we’re still very happy a year later.