Hi,
I am looking to start using WIFI phones with FreePBX.
Are there some suggestions for reasonably priced phones that support most features like MWI, conference, multiple users, distintive user ring.
I also would like to use my IPhone as a WIFI SIP phone. Any suggestions for the client? Acrobits?
Thanks,
Doug
There are a few out, each one has advantages and disadvantages:
Bria: from the maker of X-Lite. Works well, allows multiple accounts and has decent voice quality. Voice quality is usually better outbound than inbound.
I did have some issues occasionally with firewall blocking but have not dug deep into it.
Media5-fone: has been OK, did have occasional voice problems. But worked good most of the time.
WeePhone: Tried it a while ago and have not used it lately. They did have a push notification feature where one of their servers was always polling my PBX and regularly would cause the PBX to go crazy. After turning of Push notifications it worked. Not sure why I am not using it any more.
Feature wise: I do like Bria the most followed by Media5-fone. Media5 at least has a few days of trial period which limits calls to 30 seconds before you have to buy it.
Be aware that all of those softphones require stable bandwidth (so a flaky 3G is not working). They are also a huge battery drain. Running either one of those cuts the lifetime of my battery by at least 30% so keep your charger handy.
Also: they are all around $ 7 - $ 9…
Thank you.
What WIFI’s SIP phones do you like?
Doug
I’m testing the Cisco WIP310 and the Unidata WPU-7800 phones.
The WIP310 worked well but their batteries died within 4-6 months (one with regular use the other with almost no use). I checked for months and could not find a replacement anywhere.
The Unidata seems to have some nice reviews. Lack of a WIP310 battery is what forced me to buy the WPU-7800. It’s at my clients now and they’re testing it. I seemed to have a lot of problems keeping it connected to the WLAN. If I made any change to the settings it would drop the WLAN connection and I would have to re-do the WLAN’s PSK.
And of course the day I bring the WIP310 back to my office I ran a web search and a single source for the battery showed up at Provantage.com, for either phone the replacement cost is about $30 delivered.
In my experience if you don’t have a very solid wireless infrastructure I would go with a DECT phone such as the Aastra MBU-400.
Cisco small business makes some great multi-SSID QoS enabled wireless gear. You want to have a very conservative RF design with at least 50% overlap between the AP’s.
You can download a 30 day evaluation of the Ekahau site survey tool. I would not even consider deploying wi-fi voip without a site survey.
I’m cheap.
My sister gave me her old iphone 3gs and I don’t want phone service so I downloaded http://www.linphone.org/ (open source cross platform) on the iphone and set it up to connect to my asterik/freepbx server at home. When I am an area where there is wifi, I can make a call. I can call any of my extensions at my house and talk to the girlfriend and not use a single incoming or outgoing minute from my SIP provider since I’m just calling another extension. I don’t even have a data plan on the iphone so if I’m on the highway or something, the iphone functions as a clock/music player.
It seems linphone only works if it is open and the top app. In other words, you can’t open it, minimise it and expect to receive an incoming call. I haven’t tried out the other iphone sip phone apps.
I have not noticed linphone consuming a large percentage of the battery.
I know the linphone will work over 3g since my girlfriend has linphone on her iphone with 3g service and we’re able to call places. Doing this would deduct from the monthly data transfer as opposed to the monthly minutes.
btw, linphone is free and does not have a trial period.
Just posting more information about the iphone/asterisk/freepbx…
What if you want to save money and have NO data plan or phone plan on your phone? I’m pretty certain AT&T will require your iphone to have a dataplan increasing the monthly bill but here is a solution:
http://www.virginmobileusa.com/mobile-broadband/mifi-2200.html
no contract, pay as you go 3g portable hotspot. AT&T has one but you need a contact.
This could also be a way to test out your honeypot skills.
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