asterisk users - Mar 2005 - multiline, cordless, expandable phone system and asterisk message waiting

Basically, pretty much all the 2 line cordless systems I've seen come with a
built in digital answering system that I'll never use, the main problem with
this is that these units don't support VMWI (visual message waiting  
indicator) with telco supplied voicemail.  This is a problem because I'll be
setup an Asterisk system in the next month or so to handle my 2 analog and 1 
voip phone lines and I want to be able to know by looking at the phones that 
there are messages waiting rather than having to check manually each time. 

In ideal world, I'll link this all together with Mister House and X10 for
the

connected home of my dreams :-)  I just saw "The Stepford Wives" with
Nicole
Kidman and I was drooling at the home automation stuff...

I've been on the lookout for a 2 line, multihandset, cordless, expandable 
system for a few years now. I already have a couple corded 2 line phone sets, 
one of which will be replaced by whatever system I get.

I've tried a few, most recently, the AT&T E2562

http://snipurl.com/dkqc

Which is pretty much perfect except for 2 things

1) The base station/corded phone is not wall mountable (not critical)
2) The unit doesn't have WMWI (visual message waiting indicator) for Telco 
provided voicemail, the VMWI only works with the units onboard answering 
system. :-(

I've looked at some Vtech systems, most are pretty nice, work well (I have 
several clients using them) and have most of the features I want, except the 
availability seems low as Staples (and other local retailers) have stopped 
carrying the unit I want.  The local Vtech factory store also closed a few 
weeks ago :-(

Panasonic has some really nice units, 5.8ghz, but no multiline 5.8ghz units, 
they also don't seem to have much in the way of multiline units in general. 
Siemens stuff looks nice but again, local availability is low. From my 
browsing there seems to be ZILCH in the way of 2 line 5.8ghz units. Actually 
I just came across one from Panasonic,much to my surprise.

Basically I want the following, any suggestions would be much appreciated:

- 2.4ghz (or 5.8) DSS/frequency hopping
- 2 line
- expandable up to at least 3 handsets
- speakerphone in each handset
- speakerphone should actually work full duplex, most speakerphones I've
used
don't work well when it's quiet, let alone when there is background
noise
- if the base is also a corded phone, that'd be cool
- call waiting caller id support
- VMWI that works with telco supplied voicemail, most of the 2 line systems 
that have a built in answering machine don't seem to support this
- 2.5mm headset jack on all handsets
- sturdy belt clip on all handsets
- rings tones for each line that are sufficiently different to really 
distinguish between lines. I had a 2 line panasonic corded phone that had 
ring tones that were so similar, I was never sure which line I was answering 
without looking at the lcd display
- call logs saved to NVRAM if power goes out, or some kind of battery backup 
to save the call logs in event of power failure

I _think_ that about covers it.

-- 
Harondel J. Sibble 
Sibble Computer Consulting
Creating solutions for the small business and home computer user.
help@pdscc.com (use pgp keyid 0x3AD5C11D) http://www.pdscc.com
(604) 739-3709 (voice/fax)      (604) 686-2253 (pager)

On Mar 22, 2005, at 2:34 PM, Harondel J. Sibble wrote:
>
> 1) The base station/corded phone is not wall mountable (not critical)
> 2) The unit doesn't have WMWI (visual message waiting indicator) for 
> Telco
> provided voicemail, the VMWI only works with the units onboard 
> answering
> system. :-(
>
I have been using the Siemens Gigaset 8825 with a Cisco and Motorola 
ATA and it includes a VMWI on the base and cordless handset.  Works 
like a charm so I would assume you could set it up to work with 
Asterisk.  I haven't checked out the newer Gigaset line, but they are 
nice phones.  2-lines with tons of features and 2.4Ghz.

The base isn't wall mountable, but you can't have everything  ;-)

Calvin


-- 
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Consider what I've done -- I picked up three separate 5.8GHz
single-handset phones and run them as individual extensions.  Multi-line
isn't that interesting in this context, as I can always use distinctive
ring or my cid_rewrite utility to identify which incoming line I'm
dealing with.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Harondel J. Sibble [mailto:help@pdscc.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 1:35 PM
> To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com
> Subject: [Asterisk-Users] multiline, cordless,expandable 
> phone system and asterisk message waiting
> 
> 
> Basically, pretty much all the 2 line cordless systems I've 
> seen come with a 
> built in digital answering system that I'll never use, the 
> main problem with 
> this is that these units don't support VMWI (visual message waiting  
> indicator) with telco supplied voicemail.  This is a problem 
> because I'll be 
> setup an Asterisk system in the next month or so to handle my 
> 2 analog and 1 
> voip phone lines and I want to be able to know by looking at 
> the phones that 
> there are messages waiting rather than having to check 
> manually each time. 
> 
> In ideal world, I'll link this all together with Mister House 
> and X10 for the 
> 
> connected home of my dreams :-)  I just saw "The Stepford 
> Wives" with Nicole 
> Kidman and I was drooling at the home automation stuff...
> 
> I've been on the lookout for a 2 line, multihandset, 
> cordless, expandable 
> system for a few years now. I already have a couple corded 2 
> line phone sets, 
> one of which will be replaced by whatever system I get.
> 
> I've tried a few, most recently, the AT&T E2562
> 
> http://snipurl.com/dkqc
> 
> Which is pretty much perfect except for 2 things
> 
> 1) The base station/corded phone is not wall mountable (not critical)
> 2) The unit doesn't have WMWI (visual message waiting 
> indicator) for Telco 
> provided voicemail, the VMWI only works with the units 
> onboard answering 
> system. :-(
> 
> I've looked at some Vtech systems, most are pretty nice, work 
> well (I have 
> several clients using them) and have most of the features I 
> want, except the 
> availability seems low as Staples (and other local retailers) 
> have stopped 
> carrying the unit I want.  The local Vtech factory store also 
> closed a few 
> weeks ago :-(
> 
> Panasonic has some really nice units, 5.8ghz, but no 
> multiline 5.8ghz units, 
> they also don't seem to have much in the way of multiline 
> units in general. 
> Siemens stuff looks nice but again, local availability is 
> low. From my 
> browsing there seems to be ZILCH in the way of 2 line 5.8ghz 
> units. Actually 
> I just came across one from Panasonic,much to my surprise.
> 
> Basically I want the following, any suggestions would be much 
> appreciated:
> 
> - 2.4ghz (or 5.8) DSS/frequency hopping
> - 2 line
> - expandable up to at least 3 handsets
> - speakerphone in each handset
> - speakerphone should actually work full duplex, most 
> speakerphones I've used 
> don't work well when it's quiet, let alone when there is 
> background noise
> - if the base is also a corded phone, that'd be cool
> - call waiting caller id support
> - VMWI that works with telco supplied voicemail, most of the 
> 2 line systems 
> that have a built in answering machine don't seem to support this
> - 2.5mm headset jack on all handsets
> - sturdy belt clip on all handsets
> - rings tones for each line that are sufficiently different to really 
> distinguish between lines. I had a 2 line panasonic corded 
> phone that had 
> ring tones that were so similar, I was never sure which line 
> I was answering 
> without looking at the lcd display
> - call logs saved to NVRAM if power goes out, or some kind of 
> battery backup 
> to save the call logs in event of power failure
> 
> I _think_ that about covers it.
> 
> -- 
> Harondel J. Sibble 
> Sibble Computer Consulting
> Creating solutions for the small business and home computer 
> user. help@pdscc.com (use pgp keyid 0x3AD5C11D) http://www.pdscc.com
> (604) 739-3709 (voice/fax)      (604) 686-2253 (pager)
> 
> 
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> UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>    
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Gotcha

However that's not going to work for me, I need a 2 line analog system that 
works for me now, the Asterisk part is slowly coming along, I have a machine 
and a couple of the intel based modems that are supposed to act like the 
Wildcat cards. 

I also have a lot of large projects with clients coming up in the next month 
or 2 so my Asterisk building time is going to be limited for the next 6-8 
weeks
 :-(


Plus I've got to deal with the fact that my GF will complain about too much 
change too quickly, so I've got to build it, test (when she's at work)
and
then deploy it when she's had the tutotial on how it all works.  You should 
have seen what happened when I installed Mythtv, that was a bit of a fight, 
now she tells all her friends about how cool mythtv is :-)

On 22 Mar 2005 at 16:24, Jay Milk wrote:
> Consider what I've done -- I picked up three separate 5.8GHz
> single-handset phones and run them as individual extensions.  Multi-line
> isn't that interesting in this context, as I can always use distinctive
> ring or my cid_rewrite utility to identify which incoming line I'm
> dealing with.
-- 
Harondel J. Sibble 
Sibble Computer Consulting
Creating solutions for the small business and home computer user.
help@pdscc.com (use pgp keyid 0x3AD5C11D) http://www.pdscc.com
(604) 739-3709 (voice/fax)      (604) 686-2253 (pager)

On 22 Mar 2005 at 16:29, Calvin Hendryx-Parker wrote:
> I have been using the Siemens Gigaset 8825 with a Cisco and Motorola 
> ATA and it includes a VMWI on the base and cordless handset.  Works 
So the VMWI works with both the built in a/m and telco voicemail? Hmm, cool. 
Anyone else using one of the these with Asterisk and can verify whether the 
VMWI works....
> like a charm so I would assume you could set it up to work with 
> Asterisk.  I haven't checked out the newer Gigaset line, but they are 
> nice phones.  2-lines with tons of features and 2.4Ghz.
Yeah, I thought of Siemens first, but there is no local availability in the 
retail channel here in Vancouver, BC that I can find, and this comment on the 
Siemens website doesn't inspire much confidence:

http://www.siemens.com/index.jsp?sdc_p=c31fi19lmn19o1133499pst4uz3&

    Siemens Canada has provided customers with quality Cordless phones for
    home and office communication for a number of years. These products
    now have limited availability in Canada, however, Siemens is committed
    to providing past customers with the product support material and
    Customer Care they need.

I did find it available via a webstore out of Ontario

http://telephone-depot.com/item827.htm
> The base isn't wall mountable, but you can't have everything  ;-)
Heh, I found a Uniden unit that is wall mountable and has everything I want 
except the specs don't list a belt clip, other than that it looks pretty 
sweet.

http://www.telus.com/cgi-ebs/jsp/viewitem.do?content=pc234498&Region=B
http://www.uniden.com/productpop/00_productpop.cfm?prd_code=TRU8866

I am going down to the local Telus store to pick one up today, still have the 
AT&T E2562 in the office so I can compare the 2.

Next thing is to get a Sipura SPA-2000 to replace the SPA-1000 provided by 
voip provider. Or might just get it for use with FWD and such.


-- 
Harondel J. Sibble 
Sibble Computer Consulting
Creating solutions for the small business and home computer user.
help@pdscc.com (use pgp keyid 0x3AD5C11D) http://www.pdscc.com
(604) 739-3709 (voice/fax)      (604) 686-2253 (pager)