Who else on the list is using them, particularly in a hosted environment? We've just decided to transition to them as our primary recommendation instead of the Cisco SPA series. We did it because of the value and feature set, like having an inexpensive phone with a small BLF, which a lot of customers asked for. I'm wondering if others have tips they've learned along the way, or any advice they want to offer. Also anyone using the advanced features like the browser for anything useful? For those who haven't tried them, or who like us, didn't like their older models, take another look. We have been surprised at the value they give us. The prices are low, but the functionality and quality are high. They aren't Polycom 600s to be sure, but they are nice phones that have a huge set of features for a great price. Customers are liking them a lot. Has anyone used the new DECT phone? We currently use the Panasonic DECT phones but they are a nightmare to configure. If anyone wants to get in touch with them, our Grandstream contact is Dennis Ryan, dryan at grandstream.com . -- Carlos Alvarez TelEvolve 602-889-3003
On Thu Aug 16, 2012 at 05:07:05PM -0700, Carlos Alvarez wrote:
Who else on the list is using them, particularly in a hosted environment?
According to our database, we have about 30,000 of the handsets configured in our voice platform. Everything from the BT-200's to the GXP-1200's, and most recently we've been deploying the GXP-140x's Overall, I like them. Yes, they're cheap. We do get a reasonable amount of failures, but they're cheap enough that we can manage this. We have had our fair share of software problems with them over the years, but Grandstream support is responsive, and we've had bugs we've found fixed within a few weeks. We do our own auto-provisioning for them, fully integrated into our admin systems, so that our support desk can deal with handset swaps, etc. Yes, I'd recommend them - but I recognise that they're not for everyone. Simon
On Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 11:04 PM, Simon Lockhart <simon at slimey.org> wrote:
According to our database, we have about 30,000 of the handsets configured in our voice platform. Everything from the BT-200's to the GXP-1200's, and most recently we've been deploying the GXP-140x's
We are primarily going to push the GXP-2124, 2100, and 1450. Is there a reason you haven't gone to those?
We have had our fair share of software problems with them over the years, but Grandstream support is responsive, and we've had bugs we've found fixed within a few weeks.
That's important to hear. We've had few, but not zero, bugs with the Cisco phones. And support/fixes have been difficult. -- Carlos Alvarez TelEvolve 602-889-3003
What type of issues are you all seeing with Cisco 5xx series phones? ________________________________ From: Carlos Alvarez <carlos at televolve.com> To: Simon Lockhart <simon at slimey.org> Cc: voiceops at voiceops.org Sent: Friday, August 17, 2012 11:39 AM Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] Grandstream VoIP phones On Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 11:04 PM, Simon Lockhart <simon at slimey.org> wrote: According to our database, we have about 30,000 of the handsets configured in our voice platform. Everything from the BT-200's to the GXP-1200's, and
most recently we've been deploying the GXP-140x's
We are primarily going to push the GXP-2124, 2100, and 1450. ?Is there a reason you haven't gone to those? ? We have had our fair share of software problems with them over the years,
but Grandstream support is responsive, and we've had bugs we've found fixed within a few weeks.
That's important to hear. ?We've had few, but not zero, bugs with the Cisco phones. ?And support/fixes have been difficult. -- Carlos Alvarez TelEvolve 602-889-3003 _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
We just ran into a problem of some Cisco phones not handling odd quirks of a Sonicwall FW yet the Polycoms handled it like a champ. I forget the model. The sad thing is we provide the internet service and some other ISP provides the SIP phone service. Since the SIP phone provider did not assist the customer in figuring out why there was a problem we got yelled at as the internet service provider who must be "causing the issue". It was not our Sonicwall either. The Sonicwall was delaying, from memory here, INVITES and they were coming in bursts after a delay. The Cisco phones consistently dropped the call afer 1-2 minutes, every single time. Polycom handled it gracefully. Grandstream left a bad taste in my mouth years ago and never tried them again. I forget why. It has been years. All Polycom here. matt at g4.net On Fri, 17 Aug 2012, Anthony Orlando wrote:
What type of issues are you all seeing with Cisco 5xx series phones?
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ From: Carlos Alvarez <carlos at televolve.com> To: Simon Lockhart <simon at slimey.org> Cc: voiceops at voiceops.org Sent: Friday, August 17, 2012 11:39 AM Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] Grandstream VoIP phones
On Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 11:04 PM, Simon Lockhart <simon at slimey.org> wrote: According to our database, we have about 30,000 of the handsets configured in our voice platform. Everything from the BT-200's to the GXP-1200's, and most recently we've been deploying the GXP-140x's
We are primarily going to push the GXP-2124, 2100, and 1450. ?Is there a reason you haven't gone to those? ? We have had our fair share of software problems with them over the years, but Grandstream support is responsive, and we've had bugs we've found fixed within a few weeks.
That's important to hear. ?We've had few, but not zero, bugs with the Cisco phones. ?And support/fixes have been difficult.
-- Carlos Alvarez TelEvolve 602-889-3003
_______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 10:20 AM, Matt Yaklin <myaklin at g4.net> wrote:
We just ran into a problem of some Cisco phones not handling odd quirks of a Sonicwall FW yet the Polycoms handled it like a champ. I forget the model.
We recommend these settings for Sonicwall, and they work with Cisco, Grandstream, and others: http://support.televolve.com/entries/21671841-how-to-configure-a-sonicwall-r... -- Carlos Alvarez TelEvolve 602-889-3003
I did not have access to the firewall but it was an older model that no longer got firmware updates. That webpage pic looks like the newer NSA series which are pretty nice for a firewall. Turning off sip transformations is something we always try. The consistent NAT, if I recall correctly, was not available in this older model. Thanks for the tips. The customer put in some really cheap netgear router and it fixed the issues they were having. matt On Fri, 17 Aug 2012, Carlos Alvarez wrote:
On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 10:20 AM, Matt Yaklin <myaklin at g4.net> wrote:
We just ran into a problem of some Cisco phones not handling odd quirks of a Sonicwall FW yet the Polycoms handled it like a champ. I forget the model.
We recommend these settings for Sonicwall, and they work with Cisco, Grandstream, and others:
http://support.televolve.com/entries/21671841-how-to-configure-a-sonicwall-r...
-- Carlos Alvarez TelEvolve 602-889-3003
On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 10:34 AM, Matt Yaklin <myaklin at g4.net> wrote:
I did not have access to the firewall but it was an older model that no longer got firmware updates. That webpage pic looks like the newer NSA series which are pretty nice for a firewall.
That is either from an NSA 240, or more likely, a TZ200-ish SOHO router. They appear to be merging all the features to look the same between the SOHO and SMB lines. I've never been a Sonicwall fan in the past but lately we've been recommending them a lot when people have SIP issues and they have been 100% great. The TZ series are cheap enough that people don't whine. -- Carlos Alvarez TelEvolve 602-889-3003
It's been a while, but my issue with Grandstream has always been: 1) SIP interoperability & stack problems. 2) Low-end speaker phone hardware, thus bad echo cancellation and duplex handling. I mainly judge phone hardware by the quality of its speakerphone, since I'm a very heavy user, so it may be a personal bias. However, by that metric, the Cisco 79xx's and Polycoms win, and Grandstreams, Snoms and Aastras lose. On 08/16/2012 08:07 PM, Carlos Alvarez wrote:
Who else on the list is using them, particularly in a hosted environment? We've just decided to transition to them as our primary recommendation instead of the Cisco SPA series. We did it because of the value and feature set, like having an inexpensive phone with a small BLF, which a lot of customers asked for. I'm wondering if others have tips they've learned along the way, or any advice they want to offer. Also anyone using the advanced features like the browser for anything useful?
For those who haven't tried them, or who like us, didn't like their older models, take another look. We have been surprised at the value they give us. The prices are low, but the functionality and quality are high. They aren't Polycom 600s to be sure, but they are nice phones that have a huge set of features for a great price. Customers are liking them a lot.
Has anyone used the new DECT phone? We currently use the Panasonic DECT phones but they are a nightmare to configure.
If anyone wants to get in touch with them, our Grandstream contact is Dennis Ryan, dryan at grandstream.com <mailto:dryan at grandstream.com> .
-- Carlos Alvarez TelEvolve 602-889-3003
_______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
-- Alex Balashov - Principal Evariste Systems LLC 235 E Ponce de Leon Ave Suite 106 Decatur, GA 30030 Tel: +1-678-954-0670 Fax: +1-404-961-1892 Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/, http://www.alexbalashov.com/
On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 10:05 AM, Alex Balashov <abalashov at evaristesys.com>wrote:
It's been a while, but my issue with Grandstream has always been:
1) SIP interoperability & stack problems.
2) Low-end speaker phone hardware, thus bad echo cancellation and duplex handling.
I am not a speakerphone user myself, and most of our customers are not. Every now and then we get one that doesn't like the SPA phones, and probably wouldn't like the Grandstream either. We give them a Polycom. The Grandstreams from a few years ago gave us a lot of issues on SIP and provisioning, but that's gone as far as we've seen. I originally turned down the offer of some demo phones based on past experience, so I urge everyone to discard that experience and see it as a new product.
I mainly judge phone hardware by the quality of its speakerphone, since I'm a very heavy user, so it may be a personal bias. However, by that metric, the Cisco 79xx's and Polycoms win, and Grandstreams, Snoms and Aastras lose.
Yeah, I'd never use speakerphone when talking to anyone, so user type will be important here. I always recommend a headset to the speakerphone users, about 50% go for it. -- Carlos Alvarez TelEvolve 602-889-3003
On 08/17/2012 01:22 PM, Carlos Alvarez wrote:
The Grandstreams from a few years ago gave us a lot of issues on SIP and provisioning, but that's gone as far as we've seen. I originally turned down the offer of some demo phones based on past experience, so I urge everyone to discard that experience and see it as a new product.
The Grandstream ATAs have also been an interoperability nightmare, both on the electrical and IP side.
I mainly judge phone hardware by the quality of its speakerphone, since I'm a very heavy user, so it may be a personal bias. However, by that metric, the Cisco 79xx's and Polycoms win, and Grandstreams, Snoms and Aastras lose.
Yeah, I'd never use speakerphone when talking to anyone, so user type will be important here. I always recommend a headset to the speakerphone users, about 50% go for it.
With a good speakerphone, having a conversation with someone over it, at a reasonable distance from the phone, and speaking at a relatively natural conversational volume... shouldn't be a problem. The reason I stay with the Cisco 7960, for all its problems and clunky SIP image UI, is that the hardware itself is just unbeatable. Nobody ever complains of being unable to hear me on my 7960's speakerphone, of tinny sound, feedback, unsteady volume, etc. The Polycom's is almost as good. Everything else sucks in this regard, though I haven't tried the SPAs. -- Alex -- Alex Balashov - Principal Evariste Systems LLC 235 E Ponce de Leon Ave Suite 106 Decatur, GA 30030 Tel: +1-678-954-0670 Fax: +1-404-961-1892 Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/, http://www.alexbalashov.com/
On 8/17/2012 12:22 PM, Carlos Alvarez wrote:
On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 10:05 AM, Alex Balashov <abalashov at evaristesys.com <mailto:abalashov at evaristesys.com>> wrote:
It's been a while, but my issue with Grandstream has always been:
1) SIP interoperability & stack problems.
2) Low-end speaker phone hardware, thus bad echo cancellation and duplex handling.
I am not a speakerphone user myself, and most of our customers are not. Every now and then we get one that doesn't like the SPA phones, and probably wouldn't like the Grandstream either. We give them a Polycom.
The Grandstreams from a few years ago gave us a lot of issues on SIP and provisioning, but that's gone as far as we've seen. I originally turned down the offer of some demo phones based on past experience, so I urge everyone to discard that experience and see it as a new product.
I mainly judge phone hardware by the quality of its speakerphone, since I'm a very heavy user, so it may be a personal bias. However, by that metric, the Cisco 79xx's and Polycoms win, and Grandstreams, Snoms and Aastras lose.
Yeah, I'd never use speakerphone when talking to anyone, so user type will be important here. I always recommend a headset to the speakerphone users, about 50% go for it. When co-workers 10 feet away from me insist on using their speakerphone, I want to beat them senseless. Therefore I need a nice heavy phone that will take a lot of abuse.
-- Carlos Alvarez TelEvolve 602-889-3003
_______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
On 08/17/2012 01:39 PM, Jason Baugher wrote:
When co-workers 10 feet away from me insist on using their speakerphone, I want to beat them senseless. Therefore I need a nice heavy phone that will take a lot of abuse.
Ah no, using speakerphone in an open-plan office environment or a cube farm is not cool. In that case, I'd keep an IP-enabled Louisville Slugger handy. -- Alex Balashov - Principal Evariste Systems LLC 235 E Ponce de Leon Ave Suite 106 Decatur, GA 30030 Tel: +1-678-954-0670 Fax: +1-404-961-1892 Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/, http://www.alexbalashov.com/
I think Alex is pretty close to customer reality here, where there is a perception of quality when the handset feels solid and has a rich, robust sounding speaker phone, and that perception of quality then reflects onto the provider that supplied the phone. I have tens of thousands deployed grandstream devices, but they are all ATA's and I have been happy with them, however on the IP phone side of things we are still mostly a cisco SPA 5XX shop because of the perception of quality and the far lower quantity of corner case / protocol issues. The Sipura / Cisco SIP stack is pretty much the gold standard for SIP endpoints, and the pricing of the Grandstreams have not yet beat out that reliability. On 08/17/2012 10:05 AM, Alex Balashov wrote:
It's been a while, but my issue with Grandstream has always been:
1) SIP interoperability & stack problems.
2) Low-end speaker phone hardware, thus bad echo cancellation and duplex handling.
I mainly judge phone hardware by the quality of its speakerphone, since I'm a very heavy user, so it may be a personal bias. However, by that metric, the Cisco 79xx's and Polycoms win, and Grandstreams, Snoms and Aastras lose.
On 08/16/2012 08:07 PM, Carlos Alvarez wrote:
Who else on the list is using them, particularly in a hosted environment? We've just decided to transition to them as our primary recommendation instead of the Cisco SPA series. We did it because of the value and feature set, like having an inexpensive phone with a small BLF, which a lot of customers asked for. I'm wondering if others have tips they've learned along the way, or any advice they want to offer. Also anyone using the advanced features like the browser for anything useful?
For those who haven't tried them, or who like us, didn't like their older models, take another look. We have been surprised at the value they give us. The prices are low, but the functionality and quality are high. They aren't Polycom 600s to be sure, but they are nice phones that have a huge set of features for a great price. Customers are liking them a lot.
Has anyone used the new DECT phone? We currently use the Panasonic DECT phones but they are a nightmare to configure.
If anyone wants to get in touch with them, our Grandstream contact is Dennis Ryan, dryan at grandstream.com <mailto:dryan at grandstream.com> .
-- Carlos Alvarez TelEvolve 602-889-3003
_______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
On 08/17/2012 01:53 PM, Ryan Delgrosso wrote:
I think Alex is pretty close to customer reality here, where there is a perception of quality when the handset feels solid and has a rich, robust sounding speaker phone, and that perception of quality then reflects onto the provider that supplied the phone.
Aye. That was a much more articulate and succinct condensation of what I meant to say. Thank you. :-) In my experience, I'm not the only one who thinks like this. -- Alex Balashov - Principal Evariste Systems LLC 235 E Ponce de Leon Ave Suite 106 Decatur, GA 30030 Tel: +1-678-954-0670 Fax: +1-404-961-1892 Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/, http://www.alexbalashov.com/
If you care about speakerphone quality and clarity, you should be using Polycom as they destroy everyone else, especially on the models that support HD voice and therefore have the big speaker baffle and better microphones. This is pretty clear when you see that all of Cisco's conference models are just rebranded Polycom's with SCCP firmwares. I'm a big Polycom fan in general, but the Cisco 7940/60 is a close second (just wish it supported more features like subscribe on the 3rd party SIP images). The Cisco's do have some problems with the speakerphone (and handset) at high volume, such as sound still coming out the handset when it shouldn't and clipping. It's been a long while since I touched a Grandstream, but I like using the feel and weight of the handset as an indicator of build quality, and the older Grandstreams failed that test miserably. -Scott -----Original Message----- From: voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org [mailto:voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org] On Behalf Of Alex Balashov Sent: Friday, August 17, 2012 1:06 PM To: voiceops at voiceops.org Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] Grandstream VoIP phones It's been a while, but my issue with Grandstream has always been: 1) SIP interoperability & stack problems. 2) Low-end speaker phone hardware, thus bad echo cancellation and duplex handling. I mainly judge phone hardware by the quality of its speakerphone, since I'm a very heavy user, so it may be a personal bias. However, by that metric, the Cisco 79xx's and Polycoms win, and Grandstreams, Snoms and Aastras lose. On 08/16/2012 08:07 PM, Carlos Alvarez wrote:
Who else on the list is using them, particularly in a hosted environment? We've just decided to transition to them as our primary recommendation instead of the Cisco SPA series. We did it because of the value and feature set, like having an inexpensive phone with a small BLF, which a lot of customers asked for. I'm wondering if others have tips they've learned along the way, or any advice they want to offer. Also anyone using the advanced features like the browser for anything useful?
For those who haven't tried them, or who like us, didn't like their older models, take another look. We have been surprised at the value they give us. The prices are low, but the functionality and quality are high. They aren't Polycom 600s to be sure, but they are nice phones that have a huge set of features for a great price. Customers are liking them a lot.
Has anyone used the new DECT phone? We currently use the Panasonic DECT phones but they are a nightmare to configure.
If anyone wants to get in touch with them, our Grandstream contact is Dennis Ryan, dryan at grandstream.com <mailto:dryan at grandstream.com> .
-- Carlos Alvarez TelEvolve 602-889-3003
_______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
-- Alex Balashov - Principal Evariste Systems LLC 235 E Ponce de Leon Ave Suite 106 Decatur, GA 30030 Tel: +1-678-954-0670 Fax: +1-404-961-1892 Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/, http://www.alexbalashov.com/ _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
I agree with polycom on the speakerphone quality front, BUT they are an absolute nightmare in most other aspects. The time required to reboot a polycom is measured on a calendar, which can be infuriating when your support team is working remotely with a non-savvy customer. Their web interface is notoriously riddled with security holes (customers do, against our advice place their polycoms bare to the internet and are always surprised when the sip credentials are harvested) The provisioning settings for them are ONLY configurable from the device dialpad, meaning remote configuration is nightmarish. If you have ever listened to a support engineer try to talk someone non-technical through typing out a provisioning URL on that device dialpad you know that it is most certainly one of Dantes levels of hell. I will sacrifice some speakerphone functionality to not place my support engineers in that kind of purgatory, especially compared to devices with reasonably decent management like the Cisco devices. Now if only they could get on board with a solution like Innomedia's DMS product which provides out of band management that punches through NAT, THEN you would have a slam-dunk. -Ryan From a support perspective On 08/17/2012 11:26 AM, Scott Berkman wrote:
If you care about speakerphone quality and clarity, you should be using Polycom as they destroy everyone else, especially on the models that support HD voice and therefore have the big speaker baffle and better microphones. This is pretty clear when you see that all of Cisco's conference models are just rebranded Polycom's with SCCP firmwares. I'm a big Polycom fan in general, but the Cisco 7940/60 is a close second (just wish it supported more features like subscribe on the 3rd party SIP images). The Cisco's do have some problems with the speakerphone (and handset) at high volume, such as sound still coming out the handset when it shouldn't and clipping.
It's been a long while since I touched a Grandstream, but I like using the feel and weight of the handset as an indicator of build quality, and the older Grandstreams failed that test miserably.
-Scott
-----Original Message----- From: voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org [mailto:voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org] On Behalf Of Alex Balashov Sent: Friday, August 17, 2012 1:06 PM To: voiceops at voiceops.org Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] Grandstream VoIP phones
It's been a while, but my issue with Grandstream has always been:
1) SIP interoperability & stack problems.
2) Low-end speaker phone hardware, thus bad echo cancellation and duplex handling.
I mainly judge phone hardware by the quality of its speakerphone, since I'm a very heavy user, so it may be a personal bias. However, by that metric, the Cisco 79xx's and Polycoms win, and Grandstreams, Snoms and Aastras lose.
On 08/16/2012 08:07 PM, Carlos Alvarez wrote:
Who else on the list is using them, particularly in a hosted environment? We've just decided to transition to them as our primary recommendation instead of the Cisco SPA series. We did it because of the value and feature set, like having an inexpensive phone with a small BLF, which a lot of customers asked for. I'm wondering if others have tips they've learned along the way, or any advice they want to offer. Also anyone using the advanced features like the browser for anything useful?
For those who haven't tried them, or who like us, didn't like their older models, take another look. We have been surprised at the value they give us. The prices are low, but the functionality and quality are high. They aren't Polycom 600s to be sure, but they are nice phones that have a huge set of features for a great price. Customers are liking them a lot.
Has anyone used the new DECT phone? We currently use the Panasonic DECT phones but they are a nightmare to configure.
If anyone wants to get in touch with them, our Grandstream contact is Dennis Ryan, dryan at grandstream.com <mailto:dryan at grandstream.com> .
-- Carlos Alvarez TelEvolve 602-889-3003
_______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
-- Alex Balashov - Principal Evariste Systems LLC 235 E Ponce de Leon Ave Suite 106 Decatur, GA 30030 Tel: +1-678-954-0670 Fax: +1-404-961-1892 Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/, http://www.alexbalashov.com/ _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
_______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
I agree with everything said here. All of these are the reasons that we stopped using Polycom completely unless a customer specifically request it. There is some confusion on what speakerphone quality means here. If the speaker itself sounds good to the user that is all that we need for the vast majority of users who simply use it as a way to dial. When I mentioned the speakerphone quality earlier I was referring to how it sounds to the far end. The GXP-21xx sound great to the user. Sent from my iPhone On Aug 17, 2012, at 1:31 PM, Ryan Delgrosso <ryandelgrosso at gmail.com> wrote:
I agree with polycom on the speakerphone quality front, BUT they are an absolute nightmare in most other aspects.
The time required to reboot a polycom is measured on a calendar, which can be infuriating when your support team is working remotely with a non-savvy customer.
Their web interface is notoriously riddled with security holes (customers do, against our advice place their polycoms bare to the internet and are always surprised when the sip credentials are harvested)
The provisioning settings for them are ONLY configurable from the device dialpad, meaning remote configuration is nightmarish. If you have ever listened to a support engineer try to talk someone non-technical through typing out a provisioning URL on that device dialpad you know that it is most certainly one of Dantes levels of hell.
I will sacrifice some speakerphone functionality to not place my support engineers in that kind of purgatory, especially compared to devices with reasonably decent management like the Cisco devices. Now if only they could get on board with a solution like Innomedia's DMS product which provides out of band management that punches through NAT, THEN you would have a slam-dunk.
-Ryan
From a support perspective On 08/17/2012 11:26 AM, Scott Berkman wrote:
If you care about speakerphone quality and clarity, you should be using Polycom as they destroy everyone else, especially on the models that support HD voice and therefore have the big speaker baffle and better microphones. This is pretty clear when you see that all of Cisco's conference models are just rebranded Polycom's with SCCP firmwares. I'm a big Polycom fan in general, but the Cisco 7940/60 is a close second (just wish it supported more features like subscribe on the 3rd party SIP images). The Cisco's do have some problems with the speakerphone (and handset) at high volume, such as sound still coming out the handset when it shouldn't and clipping.
It's been a long while since I touched a Grandstream, but I like using the feel and weight of the handset as an indicator of build quality, and the older Grandstreams failed that test miserably.
-Scott
-----Original Message----- From: voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org [mailto:voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org] On Behalf Of Alex Balashov Sent: Friday, August 17, 2012 1:06 PM To: voiceops at voiceops.org Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] Grandstream VoIP phones
It's been a while, but my issue with Grandstream has always been:
1) SIP interoperability & stack problems.
2) Low-end speaker phone hardware, thus bad echo cancellation and duplex handling.
I mainly judge phone hardware by the quality of its speakerphone, since I'm a very heavy user, so it may be a personal bias. However, by that metric, the Cisco 79xx's and Polycoms win, and Grandstreams, Snoms and Aastras lose.
On 08/16/2012 08:07 PM, Carlos Alvarez wrote:
Who else on the list is using them, particularly in a hosted environment? We've just decided to transition to them as our primary recommendation instead of the Cisco SPA series. We did it because of the value and feature set, like having an inexpensive phone with a small BLF, which a lot of customers asked for. I'm wondering if others have tips they've learned along the way, or any advice they want to offer. Also anyone using the advanced features like the browser for anything useful?
For those who haven't tried them, or who like us, didn't like their older models, take another look. We have been surprised at the value they give us. The prices are low, but the functionality and quality are high. They aren't Polycom 600s to be sure, but they are nice phones that have a huge set of features for a great price. Customers are liking them a lot.
Has anyone used the new DECT phone? We currently use the Panasonic DECT phones but they are a nightmare to configure.
If anyone wants to get in touch with them, our Grandstream contact is Dennis Ryan, dryan at grandstream.com <mailto:dryan at grandstream.com> .
-- Carlos Alvarez TelEvolve 602-889-3003
_______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
-- Alex Balashov - Principal Evariste Systems LLC 235 E Ponce de Leon Ave Suite 106 Decatur, GA 30030 Tel: +1-678-954-0670 Fax: +1-404-961-1892 Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/, http://www.alexbalashov.com/ _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
_______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
_______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
On Friday, August 17, 2012 1:31 PM, Ryan Delgrosso <> wrote:
I agree with polycom on the speakerphone quality front, BUT they are an absolute nightmare in most other aspects.
[snip] If you haven't used it yet, a lot of your complaints have been address in UCS 4.0, *especially* the boot-up time, which is MUCH improved. Many configuration options which previously required a reboot of the phone after being changed no longer do. The web management interface got a complete overhaul, too, although I haven't become intimately familiar with the new one since I tend to shy away from using the web management anyway and generally stick to central provisioning. In an office environment, you can use DHCP to set the provisioning URL of the phone so that it doesn't have to be entered in manually on the phone itself, although I understand that for hosted PBX service providers, this isn't really an option. What we have ended up doing for telecommuters is to put the phones behind a small, cheap, L2VPN-capable router (MikroTik RB750), have the router tunnel back to the office, and L2-bridge the phone over the VPN so that it can talk to the same DHCP server as all the phones in the office do. Kills many birds with a single stone: phone traffic is encrypted, the office phone switch doesn't need to have a publicly-routable IP assigned to it, the phones themselves aren't behind a NAT from the perspective of the office phone switch, and all phones -- local and remote -- are provisioned the same way. Win, win, win, win. -- Nathan Anderson First Step Internet, LLC nathana at fsr.com
Yes, version 4 is much much better. It boots up very fast. The web interface is rich in functionality and is much easier to use. Matthew what is Polycom zero touch provisioning? Also, does anybody know if Polycom phones can check for an updated provisioning file (like the Cisco SPA does)? Does allows you to change the settings of the phone without asking the user to restart it every time. Thanks, Oren On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 4:53 PM, Nathan Anderson <nathana at fsr.com> wrote:
On Friday, August 17, 2012 1:31 PM, Ryan Delgrosso <> wrote:
I agree with polycom on the speakerphone quality front, BUT they are an absolute nightmare in most other aspects.
[snip]
If you haven't used it yet, a lot of your complaints have been address in UCS 4.0, *especially* the boot-up time, which is MUCH improved. Many configuration options which previously required a reboot of the phone after being changed no longer do. The web management interface got a complete overhaul, too, although I haven't become intimately familiar with the new one since I tend to shy away from using the web management anyway and generally stick to central provisioning.
In an office environment, you can use DHCP to set the provisioning URL of the phone so that it doesn't have to be entered in manually on the phone itself, although I understand that for hosted PBX service providers, this isn't really an option. What we have ended up doing for telecommuters is to put the phones behind a small, cheap, L2VPN-capable router (MikroTik RB750), have the router tunnel back to the office, and L2-bridge the phone over the VPN so that it can talk to the same DHCP server as all the phones in the office do. Kills many birds with a single stone: phone traffic is encrypted, the office phone switch doesn't need to have a publicly-routable IP assigned to it, the phones themselves aren't behind a NAT from the perspective of the office phone switch, and all phones -- local and remote -- are provisioned the same way. Win, win, win, win.
-- Nathan Anderson First Step Internet, LLC nathana at fsr.com
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Polycom 4.0 firmware is nice, but it does not track missed calls (at least on the 550 model). This is a bug confirmed by Polycom. This issue is a showstopper for us. I find it astounding. On Asterisk you can ask the phone to check for config file changes (except for MAC-directory.xml) by issuing "sip notify polycom-check-cfg XXX" where XXX is the SIP device configured on Asterisk. -----Original Message----- From: voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org [mailto:voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org] On Behalf Of Oren Yehezkely Sent: Friday, August 17, 2012 9:25 PM To: Nathan Anderson Cc: voiceops at voiceops.org Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] Grandstream VoIP phones Yes, version 4 is much much better. It boots up very fast. The web interface is rich in functionality and is much easier to use. Matthew what is Polycom zero touch provisioning? Also, does anybody know if Polycom phones can check for an updated provisioning file (like the Cisco SPA does)? Does allows you to change the settings of the phone without asking the user to restart it every time.
On 17-Aug-12 20:24, Oren Yehezkely wrote:
Yes, version 4 is much much better. It boots up very fast. The web interface is rich in functionality and is much easier to use.
Matthew what is Polycom zero touch provisioning?
Basically, the phones come with the provisioning URL set at the factory to a Polycom server, and you (as the reseller or customer) can use that to redirect them to your own server. This is useful in cases where you do not control DHCP at the customer site. Some Polycom distributors also offer a pre-configuration service where they put your provisioning server's URL directly into the phone before shipment.
Also, does anybody know if Polycom phones can check for an updated provisioning file (like the Cisco SPA does)?
Config file polling, either periodic or scheduled, has been available since version 1.0.
Does allows you to change the settings of the phone without asking the user to restart it every time.
As of version 4.0, yes, for most settings. A few still require a reboot, but that's much faster as well. S -- Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking
On Aug 17, 2012, at 4:31 PM, Ryan Delgrosso <ryandelgrosso at gmail.com> wrote:
I agree with polycom on the speakerphone quality front, BUT they are an absolute nightmare in most other aspects.
The time required to reboot a polycom is measured on a calendar, which can be infuriating when your support team is working remotely with a non-savvy customer.
Not with 4.0.1 firmware
Their web interface is notoriously riddled with security holes (customers do, against our advice place their polycoms bare to the internet and are always surprised when the sip credentials are harvested
All new web interface with 4.0.1 don't know f the wholes have been fixed
The provisioning settings for them are ONLY configurable from the device dialpad, meaning remote configuration is nightmarish. If you have ever listened to a support engineer try to talk someone non-technical through typing out a provisioning URL on that device dialpad you know that it is most certainly one of Dantes levels of hell.
4.0.1 can be set via the web interface. The have also supported DHCP options for quite a while
I will sacrifice some speakerphone functionality to not place my support engineers in that kind of purgatory, especially compared to devices with reasonably decent management like the Cisco devices. Now if only they could get on board with a solution like Innomedia's DMS product which provides out of band management that punches through NAT, THEN you would have a slam-dunk.
Have you looked at Polycom zero touch provisioning? It is DMS in the cloud
-Ryan
From a support perspective On 08/17/2012 11:26 AM, Scott Berkman wrote:
If you care about speakerphone quality and clarity, you should be using Polycom as they destroy everyone else, especially on the models that support HD voice and therefore have the big speaker baffle and better microphones. This is pretty clear when you see that all of Cisco's conference models are just rebranded Polycom's with SCCP firmwares. I'm a big Polycom fan in general, but the Cisco 7940/60 is a close second (just wish it supported more features like subscribe on the 3rd party SIP images). The Cisco's do have some problems with the speakerphone (and handset) at high volume, such as sound still coming out the handset when it shouldn't and clipping.
It's been a long while since I touched a Grandstream, but I like using the feel and weight of the handset as an indicator of build quality, and the older Grandstreams failed that test miserably.
-Scott
-----Original Message----- From: voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org [mailto:voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org] On Behalf Of Alex Balashov Sent: Friday, August 17, 2012 1:06 PM To: voiceops at voiceops.org Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] Grandstream VoIP phones
It's been a while, but my issue with Grandstream has always been:
1) SIP interoperability & stack problems.
2) Low-end speaker phone hardware, thus bad echo cancellation and duplex handling.
I mainly judge phone hardware by the quality of its speakerphone, since I'm a very heavy user, so it may be a personal bias. However, by that metric, the Cisco 79xx's and Polycoms win, and Grandstreams, Snoms and Aastras lose.
On 08/16/2012 08:07 PM, Carlos Alvarez wrote:
Who else on the list is using them, particularly in a hosted environment? We've just decided to transition to them as our primary recommendation instead of the Cisco SPA series. We did it because of the value and feature set, like having an inexpensive phone with a small BLF, which a lot of customers asked for. I'm wondering if others have tips they've learned along the way, or any advice they want to offer. Also anyone using the advanced features like the browser for anything useful?
For those who haven't tried them, or who like us, didn't like their older models, take another look. We have been surprised at the value they give us. The prices are low, but the functionality and quality are high. They aren't Polycom 600s to be sure, but they are nice phones that have a huge set of features for a great price. Customers are liking them a lot.
Has anyone used the new DECT phone? We currently use the Panasonic DECT phones but they are a nightmare to configure.
If anyone wants to get in touch with them, our Grandstream contact is Dennis Ryan, dryan at grandstream.com <mailto:dryan at grandstream.com> .
-- Carlos Alvarez TelEvolve 602-889-3003
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participants (13)
-
abalashov＠evaristesys.com -
avorlando＠yahoo.com -
carlos＠televolve.com -
EWieling＠nyigc.com -
jason＠thebaughers.com -
matthew＠corp.crocker.com -
myaklin＠g4.net -
nathana＠fsr.com -
orenyny＠gmail.com -
ryandelgrosso＠gmail.com -
scott＠sberkman.net -
simon＠slimey.org -
stephen＠sprunk.org