asterisk users - Nov 2007 - Recommendations for 100 Wifi SIP phone setup

Hi all,


Im preparing a quote for a 5 Star hotel, planning to have around 100
SIP Wifi phones for PBX operations running on 100 AccessPoints.
Network is running in ARUBA Networks - AP70 access points.

The initial recommendation is to go for Hitachi Wifiphones, but i
would like to know from the group the recommendations. Im planning to
put up Asterisk as the PBX, Please advice me the do's and donts as i'm
not experienced on such heavy installation which are mission critical.
I had been using asterisk on small profiles and this would be my first
Pro setup with wifi handsets if all goes as planned.

the Key Questions are

Is Asterisk good enough? or do we need a another Proxy like SER?

What is the experience with Hitachi Wifi phone's? Any specific Issues?

Any such installations done? Please do a detail

Looking for experiences..

Thanks

Sunil Charly
Manager - Business Planning
KOLTELECOM

On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:26:54 +0300, sunil at koltelecom.com wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>
>Im preparing a quote for a 5 Star hotel, planning to have around 100
>SIP Wifi phones for PBX operations running on 100 AccessPoints.
>Network is running in ARUBA Networks - AP70 access points.
>
>The initial recommendation is to go for Hitachi Wifiphones, but i
>would like to know from the group the recommendations. Im planning to
>put up Asterisk as the PBX, Please advice me the do's and donts as
i'm
>not experienced on such heavy installation which are mission critical.
>I had been using asterisk on small profiles and this would be my first
>Pro setup with wifi handsets if all goes as planned.
>
>the Key Questions are
>
>Is Asterisk good enough? or do we need a another Proxy like SER?
>
>What is the experience with Hitachi Wifi phone's? Any specific Issues?
>
>Any such installations done? Please do a detail
I had some Hitachi WIP5000 back in early 2006. It looks like a nice
device but it really didn't deliver upon its promise. 

The reason to select a wifi phone is that by staying IP end to end you
might gain operational advantages. It should have at least some of the
features of a proper SIP deskset. The WIP5000 did not provide this at
the time. The phones that I used had simple trouble moving  between
access points. Also the volume of the earpiece was very low, even for
use in a quiet office.

I am led to beleive that the new DECT cordless IP devices, like the
system from Aastra Telecom, are currently a better option than wifi
devices.

Michael

--
Michael Graves
mgraves<at>mstvp.com
o713-861-4005
c713-201-1262
sip:mjgraves at pixelpower.onsip.com
skype mjgraves
fwd 54245

My number one recommendation is be VERY VERY Careful.  You could be
selling the biggest nightmare to you and the customer ever.

I have tried almost all the wifi sip phones and they are ALL sub par.
Range is terrible on most, but mainly its staying connected to the ap's
all the time and especially multiaccess points that causes issues.  The
hitachi phone I tried, the 5000, it was bad, it doesn't support wpa,
that's crazy.  No firmware updates in a while either so its not coming.
The new one maybe does, the ae.

The utstarcom one never stayed connected either.

Anyways the best is what the other guy said, phones that are not wifi
but integrated with sip, that might be worth looking into.  I assume the
hotel already has the access points that's why you are doing this? Well
I can see the reason, my recommendation, do extensive testing first with
the phones you are looking at, as in multi day testing to make sure the
phones stay connected and get all the calls.

Mike

 

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of
sunil at koltelecom.com
Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2007 3:27 PM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: [asterisk-users] Recommendations for 100 Wifi SIP phone setup

Hi all,


Im preparing a quote for a 5 Star hotel, planning to have around 100 SIP
Wifi phones for PBX operations running on 100 AccessPoints.
Network is running in ARUBA Networks - AP70 access points.

The initial recommendation is to go for Hitachi Wifiphones, but i would
like to know from the group the recommendations. Im planning to put up
Asterisk as the PBX, Please advice me the do's and donts as i'm not
experienced on such heavy installation which are mission critical.
I had been using asterisk on small profiles and this would be my first
Pro setup with wifi handsets if all goes as planned.

the Key Questions are

Is Asterisk good enough? or do we need a another Proxy like SER?

What is the experience with Hitachi Wifi phone's? Any specific Issues?

Any such installations done? Please do a detail

Looking for experiences..

Thanks

Sunil Charly
Manager - Business Planning
KOLTELECOM

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For campus installations such as this, you may want to look at Polycom 
(Spectralink) phones.  They are more expensive but are designed for tough 
environments and are of better quality than any of the consumer-oriented 
phones.

Asterisk should be fine for an installation of this size, no need for SER. 
You can even set this up without registering the endpoints because they will 
be on a LAN and you can use static LAN IPs for each individual phone.

Beyond technical considerations, you will have to be very aware of practical 
matters such as broken phones and stolen phones.  In hospitals you can 
pretty much bet on replacing your total phone pool every year, so when 
installing a system like this you are not buying 100 phones, you are buying 
100 phones PER YEAR.  In a hotel I can imagine it would be even worse in 
terms of stolen phones.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <sunil at koltelecom.com>
To: "Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion" 
<asterisk-users at lists.digium.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2007 3:26 PM
Subject: [asterisk-users] Recommendations for 100 Wifi SIP phone setup

> Hi all,
>
>
> Im preparing a quote for a 5 Star hotel, planning to have around 100
> SIP Wifi phones for PBX operations running on 100 AccessPoints.
> Network is running in ARUBA Networks - AP70 access points.
>
> The initial recommendation is to go for Hitachi Wifiphones, but i
> would like to know from the group the recommendations. Im planning to
> put up Asterisk as the PBX, Please advice me the do's and donts as
i'm
> not experienced on such heavy installation which are mission critical.
> I had been using asterisk on small profiles and this would be my first
> Pro setup with wifi handsets if all goes as planned.
>
> the Key Questions are
>
> Is Asterisk good enough? or do we need a another Proxy like SER?
>
> What is the experience with Hitachi Wifi phone's? Any specific Issues?
>
> Any such installations done? Please do a detail
>
> Looking for experiences..
>
> Thanks
>
> Sunil Charly
> Manager - Business Planning
> KOLTELECOM
>
> _______________________________________________
> --Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com--
>
> asterisk-users mailing list
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>   http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
>
>

I would like to share some facts about wifi and wifi security vis-a-vis 
wifi phones.

First off, it takes REAL time to negotiate the 4-way-handshake.  Not 
even thinking about the 802.1X authentication.  Thus a person walking at 
a normal rate, going through a door will find themselves disconnected 
from the AP on the one side of the door and trying to connect to the AP 
on the other side.  This can result in a lose of connectivity exceeding 
the ITU's 50ms max outage time (cellular systems have aways targeted 35ms).

This is part of the reason why I added PSKSA caching to the standard 
(yeah, the whole SA nomenclature was my doing, lifting it from my IPsec 
work).  The problem is moving the PSKSA cache around the APs.  802.11F 
was rejected by the vendors as a solution (and I did the security on 
that).  Thus was born thin APs with the security SAs held back in the 
switch and work on the 802.11r addendum (and is that ever a kitchen sink).

So if you want more than WEP, you NEED one of the thin AP solutions for 
mobile devices like phones.  Also you need some good processing power 
and code space (boy did the Spectralink engineer scream).  So, yeah, 
real wireless security is a real problem on handhelds.

Of course, in the end we will need 802.11s for real moblity in a large area.

Oh, and security with DECT is a REAL question.  There is too much 
handwaving and smoke (ie we can't tell you).  So I would not be 
supprised that if you are thinking DECT, don't worry about WEP over WPA.


Push for DTLS for security in mobile devices.  Of course that needs 
Diffie-Hellman and they scream about that.  Though the ECC variant is 
already used for GSM, so there is hope.  And don't even mention RSA 
operations.  But again we do see some of the ECC alogrithms in GSM 
devices; most of the manufactures in the GSM field are willing to pay 
the patent royalties demanded.