IP Phones

Posts: 336 · Posted: Sun Jan 30, 2005 10:47 pm Post subject: IP Phones

Cisco and other companies manufacture IP telephone sets. These phones were designed specifically for a VoIP phone system, and take advantage of some of the other cool features that you can have with VoIP. They work faster too, especially when storing frequently dialed numbers into the phone's memory. At the push of the button - it starts ringing. No touch tone sounds, no wait time. It connects instantly as soon as you press the button because it is all digital. It is nice that we can still use our old telephone sets with VoIP, but for feature creatures like me, I would love the option to use an IP Phone as well.

I am unsure if Vonage allows these phones on their network. I know that they would not work with the ATA devices. However I don't know if there may be some alternate device that would have a jack for an Ethernet to Phone. Does anyone know?

Thanks. Wink

Posts: 91 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Nov 26, 2004 Posts: 91

I believe the Cisco phones work in conjunction with a IP PBX server, so the directory features, instant calling, etc won't work with Vonage.

Unless Vonage implements a similar server or allows direct access to the calling gateways, such a phone can't be used.

Would be neat if Vonage implemented such a feature tho... but it would pretty much mean that you'll be limited to one type of phone (i.e. Cisco, Nortel, Avaya, etc).

Posts: 1 · Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2005 1:36 pm Post subject: SIP

Its all about SIP (Session Initiation Protocol). The handsets you speak of are capable of talking to the Vonage servers. In fact, the Vonage SoftPhone is nothing but a software SIP client. All you need is a username and password (which is preconfigured, most likely via SNMP, by Vonage and hidden in the web user interface of current TAs).

Vonage's official position on this is that they want a closed network ie: Their hardware only. This is a disease common to all telcos, big and small. Your wireless carrier wants to present you with a list of handsets, and make you buy one that is locked to their network to compensate for a discount. Luckily, the arrival of GSM in North America has done quite a bit to quash this. Rogers doesn't know what phone my SIM is in, as long as the handset is unlocked. Thats the way it should be - just provide the bloody service!

Cable (internet or TV, standards DOCSIS or QUAM respectively) has the same attitude. They want you to buy whatever (standard, DOCSIS) modem they're flogging this week, as well as a (standard, QAM-decoding) Scientific Atlanta set-top with their own custom software. CableCARD (google your face off) will hopefully bring an end to this in the consumer tv market.

Personally, all I want (I'm an advanced user) from a telecommunications provider is a SIM card, a CableCARD, DOCSIS modem, and SIP username/password. Let me deal with the rest! I'll set up hardware (and make them all talk to eachother too!) on my own, with the manufacturers ORIGINAL, fully-featured software pack (With all the options my Wireless provider decided I didn't need).

These companies need to realize that they need to continue making "turnkey" products for those that want them, and simply provide service to those that don't. The technology is here (and has been for a while), we just need attitudes to change.

</rant> Oh, BTW, hi, this is my first post. Nice to meet you all! Smile

Posts: 91 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Nov 26, 2004 Posts: 91

TVdork wrote:

Personally, all I want (I'm an advanced user) from a telecommunications provider is a SIM card, a CableCARD, DOCSIS modem, and SIP username/password. Let me deal with the rest! I'll set up hardware (and make them all talk to eachother too!) on my own, with the manufacturers ORIGINAL, fully-featured software pack (With all the options my Wireless provider decided I didn't need).

And if it doesn't work ... will you call support? Because this is why companies have closed systems, they don't want to deal with support issue that would not have arised in a closed system Wink

And yes, the phones would probably work on Vonage's SoftPhone service, but the directory service is probably a different type of service... LDAP perhaps?