Hi all, I am working on building a new VoIP PBX. Looking at the current market for phones it seems my best "enterprise" options are the Cisco and Polycom phones. I have some experiance with the Cisco 7940G, but the process of flashing the phone with the SIP firmware left a bad taste in my mouth (not to mention the added expense for the phone). What is the general consensis about the polycom IP phones? Are they good? Are they better than Cisco? What do I do for the receptionist's station? Thanks in advance, Max -- Max Clark max [at] clarksys.com http://www.clarksys.com
I think Cisco VoIP phones are absolute works of art. The first time I saw one, I wanted them, That being said, I use Polycom IP 500s and I absolutely love them. The speakerphone is excellent, configs are pretty simple once you know what you are doing with them, and the phone is very aesthetically pleasing. Firmware can be updated by placing the .ld files on an FTP server and telling the phone where to get configs. Very simple to do. The compatibility is good for using them with Asterisk with no surprises. My $0.02 Cheers, Wiley -----Original Message----- From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Max Clark Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 10:03 AM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Polycom vs. Cisco IP Phones Hi all, I am working on building a new VoIP PBX. Looking at the current market for phones it seems my best "enterprise" options are the Cisco and Polycom phones. I have some experiance with the Cisco 7940G, but the process of flashing the phone with the SIP firmware left a bad taste in my mouth (not to mention the added expense for the phone). What is the general consensis about the polycom IP phones? Are they good? Are they better than Cisco? What do I do for the receptionist's station? Thanks in advance, Max -- Max Clark max [at] clarksys.com http://www.clarksys.com _______________________________________________ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
The lack of full SIP suport and the cost of Ciscos license plus the added base cost of their phones moved us away from Cisco and over to Polycom. They have been working extremely well. Software updates are free and the update process is relatively simple. I have found the IP600 is a great desk phone. I do use some IP300s for break rooms etc, but do not like them on a desk. Not sure the rquirements for your receptionist. I have found that the IP600 does have most everything required to function properly. If you do have an office without DID and a lot of traffic then you may want to look at the tools to display status on her computer. I do have a Snom inhouse for testing when I get a chance. Their quality however is not as good as either Cisco or Polycom. On Mar 17, 2005, at 11:03 AM, Max Clark wrote:> Hi all, > > I am working on building a new VoIP PBX. Looking at the current market > for phones it seems my best "enterprise" options are the Cisco and > Polycom phones. I have some experiance with the Cisco 7940G, but the > process of flashing the phone with the SIP firmware left a bad taste > in my mouth (not to mention the added expense for the phone). > > What is the general consensis about the polycom IP phones? Are they > good? Are they better than Cisco? What do I do for the receptionist's > station? > > Thanks in advance, > Max > > -- > Max Clark > max [at] clarksys.com > http://www.clarksys.com > _______________________________________________ > Asterisk-Users mailing list > Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users > To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users > >
> Not sure the rquirements for your receptionist. I have found that the > IP600 does have most everything required to function properly. If you > do have an office without DID and a lot of traffic then you may want to > look at the tools to display status on her computer. I do have a Snom > inhouse for testing when I get a chance. Their quality however is not > as good as either Cisco or Polycom.My experience is that the Cisco and Polycom phones are both about in terms audio quality and useability. Neither one does exactly what I'd expect with respect to multiple lines. They both take a little extra setup in this regard, but you can read the wiki for that stuff. Snoms do exactly what I'd expect for a multiple line phone, are very easy to setup, but the audio quality and usability do not compare favorably with either Cisco or Polycom. Between Cisco and Polycom, I went with Polycom just because of cost. The Polycom units are MUCH less expensive (since this is not the biz list, ask me privately about my reseller that is cheaper than others you'll find). On the other hand, Polycom VoIP phones are NOT supported by the company. The only way I've gotten support for them is from this list. Cisco definitely supports all their products quite nicely (for a fee).
Max Clark wrote:> Hi all, > > I am working on building a new VoIP PBX. Looking at the current market > for phones it seems my best "enterprise" options are the Cisco and > Polycom phones. I have some experiance with the Cisco 7940G, but the > process of flashing the phone with the SIP firmware left a bad taste > in my mouth (not to mention the added expense for the phone). > > What is the general consensis about the polycom IP phones? Are they > good? Are they better than Cisco? What do I do for the receptionist's > station? > > Thanks in advance, > Max >I have tested both phones. For me both phones are the same thing. Polycom configuration is easier than Cisco's. For an eye candy user the Cisco are the best option. But for production IMO Polycoms 500 and 600 are the same as Cisco 7940 and 7960 and much more cheapers. You can buy Polycoms 500 for less than $200 with support for 3 lines. -- Jose R. Ortiz Ubarri (CHEO), CS System Administrator / Programmer High Performance Computing facility - UPR Email: Jose.Ortiz@hpcf.upr.edu|cheo@hpcf.upr.edu Phone: 787-758-3054 Fax: 787-758-3058
Oddly enough, I am in the middle of dealing with both a Cisco phone problem and a Polycom phone problem. The Polycom problem I caused myself (oops during a flash) and the Cisco problem came out of nowhere. Polycom During a flash upgrade I lost power (tripped over the cord) and the phone was DEAD. I called polycom, gave them the serial number and they cross shipped a brand new phone to me the next day. I was amazed. With the chatter on this list I was gearing up for a fight. Cisco One of my users came to me to report that Cisco 7960 had gone belly up. These phones always seemed pretty hearty to me, so I was surprised. I checked it out and sure enough not only was it dead, but it would eat any switch port I plugged it into. (seems it was sending power down the Ethernet cable, which is not a good thing) I called Cisco and they said, well you didn't buy it from us so contact the reseller. I contacted the reseller (which is a prominent member of the asterisk community and sells a _bunch_ of asterisk related gear. The first response via email was " It is very rare to have a problem with one of these phones." So I email back and said, well it's only a few (less than 6) months old, can I RMA it for a replacement.... No response So I called, and got someone in Customer Service. He said, "oh well we don't buy those phones from Cisco so they wont deal with us either. I will have to contact our supplier and get back to you." Fine, I thought.... Well a week later I had not received a call. So I called back today. He apologized and promised that he would have an answer for me soon. Now I'm not throwing anyone under the bus here. They are trying to make things right. I am just using my experience as an example. So, the moral of this story.... While Polycom may not offer configuration type support for asterisk, they stand by their hardware. With Cisco you have to shop around to find a decent deal, and who know how you're going to get support. I don't mind using this list / the wiki / google / etc. for configuration type questions. After all I don't expect Super Micro to help me get FC running on one of their motherboards... Just my thoughts.... ~c ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 13:13:14 -0500 From: Noah Miller <noah@rosecompanies.com> Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Re: Polycom vs. Cisco IP Phones To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Message-ID: <6fff186cd9eed5e3c7874dcc8dcce048@rosecompanies.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed> Not sure the rquirements for your receptionist. I have found that the > IP600 does have most everything required to function properly. If you > do have an office without DID and a lot of traffic then you may want to > look at the tools to display status on her computer. I do have a Snom > inhouse for testing when I get a chance. Their quality however is not > as good as either Cisco or Polycom.My experience is that the Cisco and Polycom phones are both about in terms audio quality and useability. Neither one does exactly what I'd expect with respect to multiple lines. They both take a little extra setup in this regard, but you can read the wiki for that stuff. Snoms do exactly what I'd expect for a multiple line phone, are very easy to setup, but the audio quality and usability do not compare favorably with either Cisco or Polycom. Between Cisco and Polycom, I went with Polycom just because of cost. The Polycom units are MUCH less expensive (since this is not the biz list, ask me privately about my reseller that is cheaper than others you'll find). On the other hand, Polycom VoIP phones are NOT supported by the company. The only way I've gotten support for them is from this list. Cisco definitely supports all their products quite nicely (for a fee).
> If you've considered the Snom, you might also want to test a> Zultys 4x4 or 4x5. I picked a 4x5 up off of ebay recently and > have been pleasantly surprised by it. While I don't currently > have a Polycom to compare it with, I would rank the audio > quality equal to the Cisco's. It also just 'does the right > thing' with multiple lines - only one registration, no hints > needed. Can be configured through TFTP with both default and > phone specific config files. Software updates are freely > available from the Zultys website. I took a look at the Zultys phones when I was first shopping around. One of their reps was kind enough to lug an entire working phone setup into our office. He had some 4x4's and 4x5's and also a Cisco 7960 (just to show that their system was open standards compliant). I liked the 4x5's ease of use, the 4 port network switch, the native PoE, and the hard buttons for holding and transferring. Much to his chagrin, though, I was actually much more impressed by the 7960. The 4x4's and 4x5's just looked like lower quality equipment. I suppose it didn't help that the plastic casing on his 4x4 was cracked and broken. In the end I went with neither, though, because the Polycom units were so much cheaper.