[lug] PolycomIP 500 phones

[Nate Duehr]

On Dec 9, 2008, at 9:24 PM, Mike Stanczyk wrote:

> On Tue, 9 Dec 2008, eric hansin wrote:
>
>> If anyone is interested I could try and bring a few to the Thursday  
>> BLUG meeting.  Let me know.
>
> What can the phone be used for?  Asterisk?  Skype?   I tried Google  
> but
> didn't hit the uses of page.  (google hates me)


Disclaimer:  I work for Polycom, and I like the phones for personal  
projects and things, but they're not part of my normal "day" to  
support very often.

This may help a bit and all the links on it:

<http://www.polycom.com/usa/en/support/voice/soundpoint_ip/soundpoint_ip500.html 
 >

And these cover software versions and "stuff" us techies would need/ 
want to know:

<http://downloads.polycom.com/voice/voip/sip_sw_releases_matrix.html>
<http://downloads.polycom.com/voice/voip/relnotes/SPIP_SSIP_SIP_2_1_3RN.pdf 
 >

So, to answer the question -- if it's loaded with a SIP stack,  
Asterisk -- sure.  Or just calling another SIP device directly, of  
course... (don't have to have Asterisk to call from SIP phone to SIP  
phone, if you have the IP... the joys of IP telephony...)

Skype doesn't have any way for standards-based clients to attach to  
their network, that I'm aware of.  They're proprietary.  Asterisk is  
just a SIP to PSTN Gateway (well it's a lot more than that, but... for  
purposes of this discussion...)

I've never messed with anything older than a 501 in the phone handset  
product line, but there's people at the office who I'm sure have... If  
you guys run into trouble loading the 500, holler and I'll pass along  
the question.

They put one of THESE on my desk, and the thing just sounds GORGEOUS:   
<http://www.polycom.com/common/documents/support/sales_marketing/products/voice/spip670_datasheet.pdf 
 >   Blows the Cisco phones (yeah, we have some for interoperability  
testing -- of course) away, audio-wise.  And that's not said as an  
employee but as a "wow, I want one of those!" comment.

The so-called "HD Audio" is wicked cool inside the building and  
between sites.  You can easily hear the quality drop when you gateway  
to the lower audio quality Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)  
through the Softswitch/Gateway and do a "normal" phone call.  It's a  
significant difference.

--
Nate Duehr
nate at natetech.com