Considering Wideband Audio Over The Traditional PSTN
Question: What was the first HDVoice product that Polycom offered?
Answer: The Polycom VTX 1000 conference phone.
The thing that makes this fact so curious is not immediately obvious. The VTX 1000 is not a SIP device, nor even IP capable. Like it’s closest relative the Polycom SoundStation 2, it’s designed to connect to a plain old analog phone line (a.k.a. POTS, the PSTN).
Of course, the common wisdom is that you just can’t have wideband telephony over the PSTN. Yet the VTX 1000, circa 2003, delivers wideband conference calls so it seems that assertion is not strictly true. Understanding this is in a little more depth would seem like a good thing. Happily, Polycom published a white paper describing the internals of the VTX 1000.
Nothing gets my blood pressure rising like someone passing off bad or misleading information as the real deal. This afternoon I followed a link in someones Twitter stream over to 
Do you ever wonder what factors impact your experience using VoIP technology? Very recently Celideo, a maker of testing tools for voice and video over IP, posted a very nice summary of the issues surrounding VoIP quality. The post is entitled, “VoIP QoS Metrics Explained” and I find it a good tutorial on the subject. It’s comprehensive yet concise, and given in easy-to-understand terms.
This set of screen shots was taken from the web GUI of the Gigaset S675IP, but the web GUI for the A580IP is very similar.
A couple of weeks ago I was told that our corporate HQ in Cambridge UK was starting to think about adding new conference room. Since I oversee the hosted IP-PBX that we use in the US they sought my suggestion for a suitable new conference phone. The requirements for the new device are a little odd, making device selection something of a challenge.