Perhaps H.323 is a word that should not be uttered in polite company, but this is the only group of folks I know that would understand.
My day job has an Avaya system using hundreds of 9640G phones scattered through several locations within
the city.
At my location I need to replace a Valcom Gate intercom system with something the integrates better with the phone system. The IT guy says that our system is H.323 not SIP so I need a gate intercom device that supports H.323.
I found a perfect SIP device and asked the vendor if he had one in H.323 and he said SIP would be just fine and work. Our IT phone guy says it must be H.323 and I can find nothing using H.323.
Is it possible that our phone guy is wrong? I need guidance from folks that know far more than I do.
The Avaya 9640 phone comes in both SIP and H323 versions, so …
There is an H323 module for Asterisk (which Is the basic engine that drives FreePBX) so getting an H323 phone hooked up to a FreePBX server is possible.
Most of the Avaya systems can interface with SIP devices, which is why the guy trying to take your money was certain that the phone would somehow work. Whether your IT guy is trained in that or has the requisite knowledge to make that go is another issue.
As far as phone recommendations go - I’d call Viking and see what they can do for you:
If they can’t find you a phone that will work on your Avaya system, no one can.
If you want to add a sip device into your Avaya infrastructure, you WILL need to buy appropriate SIP licensing. You or your IT guys can find them on ebay or amazon.