I’m actively trying to select a end point to use with a FreePBX deployment.
Our goal is to replace a Avaya CS1000 phone system with around 300 handsets; we currently have a FreePBX deployment in and running at some of our smaller branch offices - although in this instance we have opted not use the likes of end point manager.
Our requirement is for the end point to be fully managed from within FreePBX.
We have tried a range of devices from the following manufactures - Polycom, Yealink, Digium, Aastra.
From this, we have had to eliminate the Digium (no support for New Zealand Locale), Yealink (FreePBX limited app support).
As for the Polycom we are still on the fence - the phone is great; however no phone app support, and limited support within the commercial end point manager.
This leaves us with Aastra - is it anything to be concerned about that Aastra is now Mitel - and neither Aastra or Mitel are certified partners (that said Yealink is, so not sure what that really means)… the other concern there has been some negative reviews with regards to the durability of the newer Aastra phones - our testing was completed on a 57i - however for deployment we would be looking at something like the 6867/6869.
Check out Grandstream… I have a much smaller footprint then
you but I have 15 Gxp-2160 deployed and they do just fine. It is fully
supported with EPM and aside of doing some personalization to the base file
they are perfect. $100 per endpoint Color display Bluetooth USB and 24 MPK’s as
well as dual full Gigabit NIC’s
We just did a 2 phone system deployment over the past 6 months. We went with almost all Grandstream 2160, and a few 2130’s for people who don’t need much. They are imperfect, but the BEST bang for the buck. Grandstream support has also been pretty good, and they have released several updates which have taken care of several large issues we’ve had. We moved our office into a new building, so I got a large PoE switch and they all work great via PoE. I’ve been very impressed with them. $100/phone just can’t be beat. We are running 16 2160’s and 5 2130’s.
I wrote my own module for configuring the phones, which was a lot of work. EPM is nice and all, but didn’t fit our needs for quickly configuring every phone the same way, including all the BLF keys. I was even able to make it customize and randomize the background image of each phone. Even my hard-to-please boss, who has always been convinced that VoIP sucks, hasn’t said a single word about the quality.
Thanks for the input - ideally the endpoint we select would be supported by the XML Applications (hence the reason we are a little on the fence with the Polycom end points).
Other requirements are for dual GiG-E interfaces and 802.1x authentication and pass-through.
We’re readying a FreePBX server using Grandstream 2130 and 2160 phones. As rtheil pointed out they have a huge bang to buck ratio and the quality and featue set for the $100 GXP-2160 and the $70 GXP-2130 is phenomenal. We’ve not found anything comparable in this price range and it’s tough to find anything close for less that twice the cost. I’m pretty sure both models have dual GbE ports and have 802.1x support.
Having said all that, you may want to look elsewhere if multicast paging from FreePBX is a requirement. I’m currently wrestling with horrible (unintelligible) audio quality when FreePBX/Asterisk initiates a multicast page and it’s not apparent what’s causing the problem. Grandstream has been pretty slow in responding to my support ticket so who knows how long it’s going to take to get to the bottom if this.
Hi David from a fellow New Zealand user of FreePBX.
We have deployed using Grandstream. As others have noted,
they are very economic, and as an extra advantage they supported in New Zealand
by the importer.
Ive got a GXP2140 to try - is it common that the GUI performance on these phones is a little slow?
Alan - Thanks for the info, which importer has provided you with support? I’ve found a couple of points I would like to seek some clarity around:
Phone obtains DHCP address BEFORE processing LLDP - so ends up in the Data vLAN, then moves to the Voice vLAN provided by LLDP
The option 60 provided to the DHCP by the phone should be ‘Grandstream GXP2140’ according to the manual - however wireshark has shown this to be ‘Grandstream GXP2140 dslforum.org’