Joe McConnaughey
2005-Dec-28 10:51 UTC
[Asterisk-Users] Re: 26. RE: Stay away from Grandstream! (Bjorn Asmul)
The Grandstream certainly has issues, but it seems most of the SIP phones do. I continue to have excellent results with the Aastra 9133i. The latest firmware (1.3) supports busy lamps with Asterisk 1.2.x. I think that dollar for dollar, it is a fine phone and works better than most. Again, YMMV but its a good phone for my office needs.> 26. RE: Stay away from Grandstream! (Bjorn Asmul)> ------------------------------ > > Message: 26 > Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2005 10:49:16 -0500 > From: "Bjorn Asmul" <bjorn@atlasvoice.com> > Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] Stay away from Grandstream! > To: "Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion" > <asterisk-users@lists.digium.com> > Message-ID: <D5CD9643CAC15B40AF96AFB4A619B42E0424B6@dokka.asmul.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > Having tried EVERY single product from Grandstream, I don't think it's > fair to judge Grandstream the way people do. > > I'm very happy with Grandstream products. > As long as you upgrade the firmware they work fine. > In fact they sometimes handle NAT better than any other device that I've > tried (including ALL Sipura products). > > Grandstream is also one of very few to support ILBC codec, and > BLF-support for Asterisk. > > If someone has tried the same, please comment. > > Bjorn > >-----Original Message----- > From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com > [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Nir > Simionovich > Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2005 4:28 PM > To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion > Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Stay away from Grandstream! > > I agree, GrandStream does seem to become the poor man's VoIP solution - > making the bar for other VoIP phones very low to pass. > I believe that GrandStream have a very good chance to basically being > bought by a bigger company, like what happened to Sipura. What would > happen then would be that people would say: "Oh, GrandStream, Very good > - after all XXXX bought them". > > I found that sometimes the most surprising hardware comes from non-known > companies, like PerfecTone or Micronet. I think the main thing is the > try things out, and find out what is the best suited IPhone for you. > > Nir S > > Steve Underwood wrote: >> I think the unfairness stems from Grandstreams generally being >> people's first IP phone - it seems like a cheap entry point to try >> things out. They then falsely assume everything else has to be better, > >> especially if it has a higher price tag. Wrong. The standard for VoIP >> phones is total crap. Anything rising even slightly above that level >> wins awards for excellence. :-) >> >> Steve >> >> Nir Simionovich wrote: >> >>> Hmmm... >>> >>> I feel that this is a little unfair towards GrandStream and other >>> like vendors. Any vendor on the market has issues with their >>> firmware, I can list many: >>> >>> Sipura/LinkSys SPA 841 (Latest firmware): >>> 1. Phone doesn't re-register upon network loss 2. Phone firware >>> becomes stalled, without any indication of an error while all >>> functions continue working 3. Transfer function doesn't work as it >>> should 4. MWI doesn't always work correctly 5. I can really go on and > >>> on... >>> >>> WellTech (Latest firmware): >>> 1. Support for g729 is buggy >>> 2. Echo cancel is buggy and causes ATA to crash 3. IP phones have no >>> ability to re-configure the function keys on the box 4. >>> Transfer/Conference buttons don't do anytning >>> >>> I can go on and on with other vendors, including Cisco, Nortel and >>> more. The thing I'm saying is that any phone you'd test would run >>> into issues at some time or other - claiming to stay away from one or > >>> another causes you to not even consider alternatives, thus at the >>> end, you reach the Microsoft way of thinking. >>> >>> Last week, I got a phone to test with called a MicroNet. Actually, I >>> got 3 phones, all from Micronet. I started them up, found out that 2 >>> of them were actually WellTech phones (well, the shape told me, I >>> hoped the firmware will be different, but I found out wrong). The >>> third phone was different. It's called a Micronet SP5106 which to my >>> surprise, worked almost flawlessly out of the box. It took me a while > >>> to configure the network correctly, and to understand the logic of >>> the menu, but after that, the rest was easy. Transfer, 3-Way >>> conference, Forward, DND, VoiceMail button, everything worked. >>> What didn't >>> work was configurable from the web backend - in other words: I >>> couldn't find a flaw (yet). The only flaw I did find was this: the >>> phone has the ability to connect to 3 SIP accounts at the same time. >>> Upon defining a new account, you need to physically RESET the phone, >>> other than that, the phone works just fine. >>> >>> I'll be posting a full review on my blog at http://www.net-gurus.net >>> >>> Regards, >>> Nir S >>> >>> Vahan Yerkanian wrote: >>> >>>> Stay away from Grandstream and AddPac. These are some of the >>>> companies with undereducated software developers that have problems >>>> with understanding written english, mainly the SIP RFC documents. I >>>> learned this the hard way, wasting half a year with helping them fix > >>>> problems which shouldn't be there if they have had read/implemented >>>> the RFC correctly. >>>> >>>> Basically, they sell beta quality hardware and then you co-share >>>> their final firmware development costs by providing free testing/QA. >>>> I blame their sales management for pushing developers to release >>>> without proper testing. >>>> >>>> GXP2000 is much more buggy echo-can wise than the earlier models. >>>> >>>> For now, I'm back to more expensive equipment. We're not that rich >>>> to pay twice. >>>> >>>> HTH, >>>> Vahan >>>> >>>> >>>> Avi Miller wrote: >>>> >>>>> Brian Capouch wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> They don't perform as well as the expensive Ciscos and Polycoms, >>>>>> but many of us are using them in a variety of circumstances quite >>>>>> happily. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I have 4 of them in a small office (GXP2000) running 1.0.12 and >>>>> they're just fine for our purposes. As Brian said, YMMV. For our >>>>> 60-person office in Sydney, I'm probably going to use a mix of >>>>> Polycom/Grandstream and softphones. >>>>