GigaOm has a nice guest post by FWD's Dan Berninger. Dan describes the benefits of wideband voice encoding, as well as the obstacles to its more widespread acceptance. He rightly points to internet connected devices as being the only way…
Originally published at www.smallnetbuilder.com on August 13, 2008
When I was asked several months ago about reviewing a pair of new Polycom desk phones, I simply could not believe my good fortune. It was a little like being asked if I’d like to have a Tesla roadster for a few weeks. But of course my good man! Where do I sign?
Michael Seto
Vice President, Market & Business Development
Voice Communications
Polycom
Michael Seto is vice president of market and business development for Polycom’s voice communications division.
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Originally published July 1, 2008 at Small Net Builder
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| Product | Polycom SpectraLink Wireless Telephone (8002) |
| Summary | Wi-Fi SIP phone designed for small business use |
| Pros | • Durable construction |
| • Supports strong Wi-Fi encryption | |
| • Centrally managed provisioning | |
| • Good voice quality | |
| • Reasonable battery life | |
| • WMM works as promised | |
| Cons | • Fiddly initial network configuration |
| • No support for compressed codecs like G.729 | |
| • Relatively expensive | |
Polycom is a leader in the IP communications space. Not only are their longstanding SoundPoint series of desktop IP phones class leaders, but their voice technology can be found in many products under many names.
Seeing a need to expand their product offering to include cordless mobility, Polycom recently acquired SpectraLink, a leading maker of Wi-Fi-based telephony systems, and Kirk Telecom, a leader in DECT-based cordless telephony systems. These acquisitions, now consolidated under the Polycom name, give the company a comprehensive product suite addressing the mobile IP communications needs of various vertical markets.
Just a brief news item from my notes of the December 26 VUC call with Steve Sokol. We learned that Digium is planning support for Polycom’s Siren7 and Siren14 codecs in a future release of Asterisk v1.6. These are also known as G.722.1 and G.722.1 Annex C. They offer wideband calling at bitrates much lower than G.722 calls.
Siren14 supports bitrates of 24, 32 or 48 kbps and 14 khz passband making it equally well suited to music as voice applications. Siren7 supports bitrates of 16, 24 or 32 kbps with 7 khz passband.
Over the past couple of days the Freeswitch developers have announced support for several newer wideband capable codecs. Thier first announcement was support for the Polycom Siren(tm) 7 and Siren(tm) 14, aka G.722.1 and G.722.1 Annex C. These provide sample…
