Cordless phones with roam capability

I have a freepbx box running at our retail store with cisco 303, and panasonic cordless running off a base. It is a one floor operation and the cordless are merely for convenience.

We are moving to a five floor retail location (Three retail floors, basement, and fourth floor offices. I would like the sales associates to have their own cordless that can roam to all levels. This way we can page and intercome them on their extension number, voicemail etc. Probably need only five but would like to have up to ten.

Looking at snom, aastra (any others?)

My requirements are:

  • Roam Capability with at least one access point/base station per floor.
  • Programable soft keys… park, trfr, bxfr (must at least have a park button!)
  • 5-10 registered handsets (each as separate extension)
  • Reliable use with asterisk/freepbx
  • Works with endpoint manager (preferred)

Does anybody have a succesfull roaming setup?

Not using basic wifi. If you invest in an enterprise class wireless system with a system controller and managed handoff, and use a high end phone like the Spectralink you may achieve decent results.

If you were my client I would recommend a DECT overlay. The Aastra SIP DECT solution works great as does the Polycom Specralink.

I have deployed several Specralink DECT systems. One of the systems covers 5 buildings on an 86 acre auto dealership campus.

I am not sure if the Specralink phones have programmable soft keys. The models I deployed did not.

FYI. Polycom sold off the Specralink line of products.

You could try using Unidata WPU-7800 handsets

I currently have 15 and as far as I am aware are the only reasonably priced SIP wifi handset that supports roaming while in a call.

They link through standard wifi back to PBX. As long as you have wifi coverage then they’ll work.

Sorry. I got busy at work and forgot about this post.

I would test the unidata but I think dect to lan is better than wifi in terms of quality. but mostlty it does not appear to have programmable soft keys.

Roam ability and call park button are a must.

I have been reading about the aastra but not the specralink. will look into it.