SMB VoIP phone recommendations FreePBX, SipXecs

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awesomo

Gawd
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Mar 20, 2010
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Hey everyone,
I have been installing FreePBX systems with Aastra phones exclusively for 4 years now. I have loved them for the most part, but a few issues have popped up that have started to make me consider my options.

#1 Faded screens. About HALF the 57i phones I have installed since 2010 have faded screens. They all fade in the same spot on the middle left. Most of them started fading right out of warranty and Aastra did nothing to help me. Now my last install of 57i's ALL 10 have faded screens in the center left (All under warranty this time, but still a nightmare to deal with). This has left a bad taste in my mouth. I can't keep installing these phones for their screens to slowly die over time.

#2 Aastra's XML scripts are a hot potato. The only reason I use these ergonomical nightmares of phones is because they have these amazingly wonderful scripts. They make install so easy and are VERY feature rich, offering features to the end user that are unrivaled. BUT Aastra is in a
lawsuit to patent trolls and gave up on the scripts. Another company picked up updating them and fixing them as Asterisk continues to change, and they were sued. I can't depend on these scripts being there for me in the future, which means I can't keep pbx's updated, which means in the event of a failure 6 years down the road, that backup file I have will be useless without an image of the base install (as I do now). Also, most of the scripts are very gimmicky, the only really cool things are the presence, visual voicemail, visual parking and the directory. Visual Parking can be handled by BLFs Visual voicemail (tough, use a pc), directory is offered on most of the phones I have played with, and presence beyond DND on and DND off is also pretty stupid. Why do I need to know Melissa is at lunch or in a meeting? Do I care about her personal life? NO. Then she get's back and doesn't turn it off...

So I am looking at other options. I have played with a variety of Aastra, Grandstream Phones (gxp2200 is cool but I can't see myself installing them due to refinement issues), Polycom Phones, a Snom phone, and soon, a Yealink.

Because I mainly focus on small to medium business, people love their blf's, and it's understandable. You have an office with 10 people all answering the phones, everyone is going to want a blf assigned for everyone else and they are not going to want to have to glance at an operator panel on their computer. On standard non-VoIP pbx systems, this seems to be the norm. But the only company in the voip world that seems to have this understood, is Grandstream. Their GXP2124v2 has 20 blf buttons on it, way more than most every other voip phone without requiring a sidecar. However, Grandstream has had questionable quality over the years. With their new phones, so far so good, but only time will heal the damage done to their reputation. As for installing Grandstream phones for my clients, I haven't hit any show stoppers on the models I have tried so the jury is out right now. After a few months of stable operation on my desk, I may consider them.

I also have been eying SipXecs for a while as well as a possible alternative to FreePBX but have constantly poo poo'd it due to there being nothing close to the Aastra XML scripts. Now that those scripts are out of the picture, SipX is free game.

If anyone has experience with some models they have had success with on either FreePBX or SipXecs, I'd love to read your thoughts. I am really into this and constantly looking for newer, better, stable solutions to offer my clients.
 
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I run the nerd-vittles flavor of PBXinaflash and i love it. I moved over when trixbox went SNAFU. Its secure (for a PBX), and has lots of plugins.

I had one Aastra voip fade on me a while back (out of the 3 on my network). I do tend to stay away from Aastra for quality reasons.

XML scripts for Aastra are a pain and for real punishment, try hand scripting the XML.CONF for cisco 7970... one wrong ; or punctuation and the voip can lock up, and not tell you why it locked up..

When you get a chance, look into the Grandstream GXP2200, they are amazing! i am running a few through IPSEC VPNs (via the phone) back to my DMZ..
They are also tied into my monitoring system and i can play angry birds on my desk VoIP!
The quality of the new grandstreams is OK.., ive only had one RMA.
Wife pulled on the handset and the plastic tabs in the headset that holds the cord in broke (not the cable, the handset)

If you want a Voip phone that is a real tank, you can't go wrong with a Cisco 7960 once you have the XML file figured out (if you want to go back into XML hell, or if you PM me i can send you one working)
and go check out nerdvittles. if anything fire up in VM and take it for a test drive, you will not be disappointed.

Good luck
SysOps
 
I still use the 7940/7960. Easily available on ebay for cheap and bulletproof for the most part. I only do a couple installs a year, I'm more IT than phones. I'm trying freepbx distro for the next one. I don't really do anything with XML with the SIP firmware. What are you using the XML to do?
 
The XML scripts are there to tap into Asterisk and provide easy access to certain features. Visual voicemail, visual parking, conference rooms, follow me configuration, etc...
 
SysOps said:
I run the nerd-vittles flavor of PBXinaflash and i love it. I moved over when trixbox went SNAFU. Its secure (for a PBX), and has lots of plugins.
Click to expand...
I have used it in the past and it strays from the core of FreePBX. When FreePBX releases an update, I may or may not have a good time when I apply the update. I don't want astridex, callerid superfecta, etc... I however have been playing with this as a possibility for small installs. http://nerdvittles.com/?p=3026 It runs great, but support over time is my concern.

SysOps said:
XML scripts for Aastra are a pain and for real punishment
Click to expand...
Read the directions and try them again. They do 99% of the work for you. I don't know what you did to find them a pain.

SysOps said:
Hand scripting the XML.CONF for cisco 7970... one wrong ; or punctuation and the voip can lock up, and not tell you why it locked up..
Click to expand...
I have and it is a pain. I am staying away from Cisco for all my SMB installs unless I can get the budget to use CUCM. Cisco phones and SIP are not the best of friends AND if I want to update the SIP firmware, I have to have Smartnet. Cisco is great if you go all Cisco, but I am not pirating IOS files or buying used/refurb old phones for clients.

SysOps said:
When you get a chance, look into the Grandstream GXP2200.
Click to expand...
I bought one the day it came out and have been playing with it. There are multiple issues (No BLF available yet, Delayed dialing from sleep state, speakerphone volume that may or may not be fixed) and it is still very much a beta phone. I would not install it for any clients in it's current state.
 
I'm a small IT shop catering to small business, 1-50 users primaarily.
I use sipXecs and Polycom phones. Both sipXecs and Polycom are 100% SIP compatible, so you have industry/standard compliance supporting the feature set. The latest version of sipXecs supports the latest UC firmware for Polycom, removing some really hokey interaction.
I've found Polycom phones incredibly easy to provision and having a really solid feature set. I use the SoundPoint IP 335 for most users as it is inexensive, has an awesome speakerphone and sound quality, and super easy to use. It does support BLF (BLF is now part of the SIP standard too) but with only two line keys, it is just about useless.
The Polycom VVX 500 is my go-to phone for Receptionists/Managers/gee-whi features. it can handle at least 12 line presentations with 6 per screen and just an icredible array of features- you can even add-on a USB cam for video conferencing or store/retrieve info from a USB flash drive.
My only complaint with sipXecs so far is it does not support recursive ring groups (ring group a, then a+b, then a+b+c), which alot of small offices like.
 
awesomo said:
The XML scripts are there to tap into Asterisk and provide easy access to certain features. Visual voicemail, visual parking, conference rooms, follow me configuration, etc...
Click to expand...

All my stuff is pretty basic. Would you mind posting or PM'ing some of the XML stuff so I can take a look and see what I'm missing?
 
This is old but it gets the point across. http://nerdvittles.com/?p=207

On the freepbx distro, ignore all of Ward's install directions and do a
Code: 
yum install aastra-xml-scripts

Everything else, looks to be unchanged. It is only for the Aastra line of phones and is best used on the 57i.
 
RocketTech said:
I'm a small IT shop catering to small business, 1-50 users primarily.
I use sipXecs and Polycom phones.
Click to expand...

This is exactly the type of response I was looking for. SipXecs is designed around Polycom's first so the compatibility is amazing. I have yet to use the vvx-500 but it looks very cool. As for using the 335 everywhere else, how do you get past all the employees complaining about the lack of programmable keys (in every case, used for blf's for other employees)? Do you set everyone up with the voice operator panel and say tough? I see there is not a side car option for the 335.
 
I tell them I can implement it using the vvx500, which is a little better than double the price of the IP 335, and the discussion ends there. Most of the shops are small enough they can either see/hear the other person, or it's not that big an issue. You can imlement BLF and or SLA on the IP 335, but you only have two line presentations, so it is not practical. I do implement Intercom, attended transfer, and user VMs which has ameliorated concerns. My Small Biz customers like lower prices. You may have room to just spec the vvx500s or the sidecar cpable phones.
The vvx500 is a bargain for the feature set and just cool factor. I haven't even begun to explore some of the possibilities, like background screen aps (weather, stocks, etc) or dedicated apps. One thing it does excel at though is multiple line appearances. For being a primarily touchscreen interface, the interaction is remarkably similar to the non-touchscreen phones.
The IP 335 does have programmable keys, provisionable via both sipXecs and on the phone- the simplest is changing the line 2 button to a Messages button (replacement key included). I'm pretty sure you can also program additional soft keys. The 335 also has alot of features accesible via menus/hotkeys, such as corp directory, user directory, personal speed-dial, user-accessible settings such as riner volume, style, backlight, etc.
Polycoms do support hands-free intercom, which allows a user to dial another station and the phone goes off-hook to seakerphone. This feature often costs $$$ on other phones/systems. The other feature that makes the Polycoms an easy sell is their speakerphone and over-all call quality. I can use the speakerphone is a server-room environment and be understood.
If I could change one thing on the Polycoms it would be to make louder ringers. They are fine for office environments, but are on the quiet side for production environments.
I hope I've addressed your questions- if not, post again or PM me. I don't check PMs very often though.
 
@RocketTech, Everything you said gave me a bit more to think about. I have used an older 501 with SipX and was impressed with everything about it, but I was so content with my Aastra phones, I never gave it the light of day. When Aastra started giving me issues, I was starting to lean the SipX/Polycom direction, but I needed to hear it from someone else. I just ordered a vvx-500 and a 335 to play with. Thanks.

If anyone else has an opinion, I'd love to read it.
 
Polycom phones are great. No need to change the PBX software. I think FreePBX includes Polycom provisioning, but honestly using FreePBX hurts my eyes.
 
FreePBX includes no provisioning, until you install tm1000s provisioner module...

i have ~200 Yealink T-26s/T-22s using w/ FreePBX and although we havn't had them for all that long, so far we havn't had any issues w/ handset quality...

there were a few issues that needed corrected in the provisioner module, but tm1000 has github set up and you can submit changes and he's pretty good about getting them in there (i've already submitted a couple that made it's way in, fixin to add one more to make the DND button work the way it's supposed to, easy enough to change the feature code in the provisioning files)

using FreePBX, Yealinks and the provisioner module is it... i wouldn't have it any other way... i bought tons of different handsets to use, was going to go cisco until i got the Polycoms, but the polycom didn't have enough buttons... the yealinks were pretty much perfect in every way for us.... and cheap too!

grandstreams were trash, aastra's XML files are their only redeeming feature imo... they're expensive and don't have a whole lot of features... i'm surprised to hear you had problems with screens....

also if you're wanting to get some Yealinks, shoot me a PM, i've got a vendor that gets them really reasonable... i like him because he doesn't call me every 3 days wanting me to buy stuff...
 
goodcooper said:
i have ~200 Yealink T-26s/T-22s using w/ FreePBX and although we havn't had them for all that long, so far we havn't had any issues w/ handset quality...
Click to expand...

Good to hear, I have heard good things about Yealink Phones.

A few months ago I picked up a Grandstream GXP2200.

Over the past few days I put in a few orders (It's only money right?):
Yealink t26
Grandstream GXP2124v2
Polycom ip335
Polycom VVX-500
Grandstream DP715

I setup a fresh SipX server and a fresh FreePBX install. When I get the rest of the phone's, let the showdown begin. I am determined to come up with a low cost, high quality, high feature, SMB business phone system for my clients.
 
With sipXecs you can actually register the phones on both server- you can use sipXecs to provision a line for the FreePBX server. Dunno if that helps you.
 
That's a neat feature I was not aware about. I have both servers setup on different networks. I was going to setup all the phones separately on each and test out how they all worked. This is going to take many months before I will be able to decide and I start changing up what I sell. I need to be absolutely sure I am making the right decision.

A big thing I am looking at is Gigabit. I have been turned away because the 6737i (gigabit) is buggier than the 6757i (Fast Ethernet) and the people wanted gigabit (Warranted or not) but I didn't offer a phone with it.
 
I have all of these phones sitting on my table right now. So far the Yealink and the Polycom are the two main contenders.
Initial impressions:
The Snom 320 is so-so. It's a decent entry level office phone, but it's call quality and feature set leaves much to be desired. The speakerphone is pretty pathetic as well.

The Grandstream GXP2124 is a nice physical design, but that's where it ends. This phone showed so much promise. It had 20 programmable buttons, gigabit ethernet, an xml interface, a nice look, and then the crappy speakerphone, terrible ringer selection, so-so call quality, and overall lackluster firmware killed it.

The Grandstream GXP2200 Shows more promise. It physically is decent. The speakerphone is so-so, not the worst but not Polycom quality. The speaker is also a bit on the quieter side. Overall the call quality has been fine, but randomly, just on this phone, I have had people say I sounded far away or a little garbled. I am on the latest beta firmware and sharing a switch with all of my other test phones, so I can only assume it is coming from the phone itself. The firmware, although sweet sweet Android, leaves much to be desired. Most of the apps in the store, such as Skype are working poorly right now, crashing often, and other features that are advertised such as virtual blf style keys, do not exist in the firmware yet.

The Polycom IP335 sounds ok, has a very basic feature-set, more basic than I am comfortable giving any employee. It seems stable, the speakerphone quality is great, the available ringers scream professional office phone, and configuration is pretty simple on both FreePBX and SipX. It is still on the table as a "maybe". Something that is terrible on the IP335 is the button feel. It is very stiff, the range of motion on the dialpad numbers is nearly non existent.

The Polycom vvx500 is pretty cool. I have yet to even skim the surface of what this phone can do. Thus far, the call quality and speakerphone quality is excellent, the ringer is the loudest of the bunch, the touchscreen really brings many cool things such as BLA for multiple extensions. Something that is not so fun is configuring this phone. On SipX it does some of the work for you, on FreePBX it also does a little work for you. I am going to have to play with this phone some more.

The Yealink t26 is pretty neat. It has the nicest price-point of a capable phone in my roundup. The speakerphone I'd say rival's the Polycom's right now. Call quality is acceptable, but a tiny bit on the quiet side using the handset. I am going to have to do more testing as I have only had this phone a day.

As for the SipX vs FreePBX, SipX is starting to really piss me off. There were massive changes from 4.2 to 4.7. Many of the diagnostics features I relied on are gone with no replacements. The forum is pathetic, the wiki is out of date, the book is super out of date. Using SipX makes me REALLY miss my asterisk cli. I feel like I am giving up a lot I am so happy with in FreePBX when I am using SipX. SipX does not have a reasonably priced, software based operator panel for my small business clients. SipX does not have any type of faxing software. SipX does not have the ability to install update via the web interface. SipX does not have the ability to install third party web modules. And the list goes on and on. I could be wrong on every single one of my complaints, but with the lack of a proper forum, an active community contributing to it, and the lack of any kind of updated documentation, I have no idea if I am wrong.

So as of now, I am giving SipX a little more time, but as my conclusion last time I used it, it is very corporate, very expandable, and not that big in the features/custom features/Open Support department.

FreePBX is looking pretty good right now as the system I go forward with. But we'll see, I may get an answer from the SipX mailling list completely changing my mind, but after all of the digging I have done the last few days, I doubt I will read any answers I like.
 
Awesomo- pm me with your e-mail and I might be able to help with some resources. The book (Enterprise sipXecs or something) has an example user guide for phones which I updated.
I'm learning as I'm going as well, so I can't speak to the differences between freePBX and sipXecs, but I can tell you why there is no FAX support in sipXecs- it's because SIP does not officially support faxing. I resell FAX service for my clients, so that is how I handle it.

Good review of the phones. To be fair, the vvx500 is a very new phone and has been out for a relatively short time (less than a year). It is such an awesome phone and is quickly becoming a favorite that I think support will come. Are you selecting 4.0X firmware when provisioning your Polycoms?

As to the support for sipXecs- I feel your pain. Between online documentation, newsgroups, the book, and guesswork I was able to get my implementation working. I know there is active support for questions on the forum, and responsive paid support available.
The support is a big gripe with me, but it is with alot of projects out there. It tool me an embarassingly long time to figure the parameters for getting sipXecs to work with pfSense and connect to my ITSP. Some information was wrong or out-of-date, other info was poorly written or confusing.

I'm definitely gonna make a go of it. Remember, 4.7 is a beta0 afaik web-based updates are a release feature.
 
@RocketTech
I sent you off a PM. Anything on troubleshooting the new versions would be great. As for faxing, I always keep a PSTN line around for faxing/911/backup. So I'd have an FXO card in the server. It's a great setup on FreePBX.

EDIT: This was resolved with some help from the mailing list. Homer replaced SipXtools. It can be found under Diagnostics>>> Sip Capture then you hit the tiny blue link in the upper right that says "Sip Capture Web Interface"

My issue ended up being Vitelity was ignoring requests from 5080 (what SipX sends on, and can't be changed reliably right now) and I had to use pfSense to remap the ports, no-one offered a better solution beyond switching providers. But I really like Vitelity, and my old favorite, Flow Route. Flow Route has fallen behind on their feature offerings like vfax, sms, and inbound cnam lookup, all of which Vitelity does for a very reasonable price.
 
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goodcooper said:
I have ~200 Yealink T-26s/T-22s using w/ FreePBX and although we havn't had them for all that long, so far we havn't had any issues w/ handset quality...
Click to expand...

I have been playing with SipX the past week and I came to the same conclusion I came to two years ago. FreePBX is a better product for the SMB space. It has WAY more third party modules, a way better community, better all around phone support, it is easier to develop custom solutions, and it has a few great operator panels. FreePBX does lack a distributed high availability solution, but if a client REALLY needs distributed architecture over features, i'll setup SipX.

I have been testing phones since I started this thread and have come to the conclusion that the Yealink's are the best all around phones for features, button count, sound quality, setup, usability, and price. They are the price of Grandstream's (Ugh, I wanted the gxp2124 to work out, and more so the GXP2200, but the 2124 was just crap, and the 2200 shows promise but still has not had any of the features I want added yet) but the Yealinks have similar quality to the Polycom's. I will say, nothing beats the call quality, speakerphone, or build quality of a Polycom phone, but these are the next best thing in all my testing.

How long have you had your Yealink install going? I am going to wait at leased a few more months before I begin to offer these just to make sure nothing creeps up.

As for the Polycom's, great phones, not so fun to setup in FreePBX but I could get over it if they fricken supported sidecars. It truely is a deal breaker for me due to the lack of buttons. For the people that will control their phones through the operator panel on their computers, it'll be a non-issue. But for the people I am converting from these old systems, Yealink looks like the way I am going to go.
 
+1 Yealink, reasonable build quality, good audio quality, reliable and cheap as hell.
 
I am going to recommend the Yealink Phones as well. They are a great phone and good price, I have the T22p and it has never failed on me and i have had it for well over a year and a half now
 
For debugging/troubleshooting I like the older snom's. You can do wireshark captures right on the phone! I have snom 300's & 360's here at home.

My wife prefers the display/layout of the grandstream GXP2000 (now discontinued).

We use AsteriskNow at home in a VM & it works great with both.

I've had one backlight go out on my snom 300 (I bought it a LONG time ago) but other than that it works.
 
This thread is starting to really make a case for me to use Yealink's as the phones I install. They also have XML browsers that I may be able to do some cool things with, maybe bring the few features I love about my Aastras (and nothing else), to the Yealinks.

The Yealink t38G is my next order, we'll see how much wow factor it adds over the t26p I have next to me. I'll post about my findings.

I do think I will have an issue selling to people who have never heard of Yealink, but that's my problem. The Aastras were an easy sell "They took on manufacturing for some Nortel models" then all questions ceased... With Yealink I have nothing.
 
Yeah, anyone that hasn't heard of Polycom, I just tell them they make the 'starfish phones' and done.
 
They look ALOT like yealinks in a different plastic case... I wonder is Yealinks is doing the OEM-ing for them.
 
awesomo said:
I have been playing with SipX the past week and I came to the same conclusion I came to two years ago. FreePBX is a better product for the SMB space. It has WAY more third party modules, a way better community, better all around phone support, it is easier to develop custom solutions, and it has a few great operator panels. FreePBX does lack a distributed high availability solution, but if a client REALLY needs distributed architecture over features, i'll setup SipX.

I have been testing phones since I started this thread and have come to the conclusion that the Yealink's are the best all around phones for features, button count, sound quality, setup, usability, and price. They are the price of Grandstream's (Ugh, I wanted the gxp2124 to work out, and more so the GXP2200, but the 2124 was just crap, and the 2200 shows promise but still has not had any of the features I want added yet) but the Yealinks have similar quality to the Polycom's. I will say, nothing beats the call quality, speakerphone, or build quality of a Polycom phone, but these are the next best thing in all my testing.

How long have you had your Yealink install going? I am going to wait at leased a few more months before I begin to offer these just to make sure nothing creeps up.

As for the Polycom's, great phones, not so fun to setup in FreePBX but I could get over it if they fricken supported sidecars. It truely is a deal breaker for me due to the lack of buttons. For the people that will control their phones through the operator panel on their computers, it'll be a non-issue. But for the people I am converting from these old systems, Yealink looks like the way I am going to go.
Click to expand...

same, the lack of buttons on the polycoms were a deal breaker.... plus pricewise next to the yealinks, i just couldn't justify it... for like 40 dollars cheaper i could get a phone with all the buttons i needed, excellent call quality, AND a backlight? the backlight was important because these were going into preschool classrooms where they have naptime...


i've had T26s on my desk for probably a year and a half, but my large scale deployment to the rest of the company has been in the last 3 or 4 months... so far i can remember one remote reboot i needed to do on one phone in one ladies office

edit: also, i have written a couple php/xml scripts for the phones as a proof of concept for maybe doing a time punch app on them, and i also have the company directory on the phones as an xml web based directory... there are some quirks and the engrish support online for writing the apps can get a little cumbersome, but it's do-able....
 
I guess I don't understand the need for more hard buttons for cubicle types. Polycoms have backlights (default is on for the 335s, can be configured), have browsers, support extensibility and custom apps, and have had XML based directorys for quite some time. The vvx500 has 12 lines; 6 lines are addressable per screen, and arguably has more features than any other desk phone its size.

I understand having different requirements and tastes, I'm just setting the feature set straight. For a sidecar solution (I haven't needed one, so dunno of sipXecs' support) you can look at operator panel solutions, which are supported in sipXecs.
 
I use to use Freeswitch.Pain in the ass to configure but once working it was solid.
 
I picked up a yealink t28 to test out, I'll agree with the others, seems like a pretty solid phone at a pretty good price. The buttons don't quite match up to my old cisco 7960s in quality/feel, and I wish it could sit on the desk at a steeper angle, but otherwise a good phone.

Super easy BLF on the 10 side buttons, tons of config options and with some experimentation have it configuring the options I need from the config file.

Only downside I notice right now is the wall wart power supply is making noise, that high pitched squeal you get sometimes from those things.
 
what's a good VOIP distribution/system if my client wants to use PSTN lines (instead of SIP providers)? Basically I have 4 POT lines from the CO and I know I'll need a 4 (or more) port FXO card in my server, but which VOIP system is easiest to setup for this?

Looking at AsteriskNOW and the documentation seems pretty good... anything else I should look into?
 
Also look at freepbx distro or pbx in a flash (which uses freepbx as the gui, but also adds in a bunch of modules & addons, some/most of which aren't really applicable for a business). I recently setup a doctors office using freepbx distro, all I wanted was the basics: asterisk, freepbx, and I added fop2.

I've used rhino interface cards several times for FXO ports, seem to work pretty well.
 
pookguy88 said:
what's a good VOIP distribution/system if my client wants to use PSTN lines (instead of SIP providers)? Basically I have 4 POT lines from the CO and I know I'll need a 4 (or more) port FXO card in my server, but which VOIP system is easiest to setup for this?

Looking at AsteriskNOW and the documentation seems pretty good... anything else I should look into?
Click to expand...

Convince them to go all VoIP. PSTN will go away as soon as incumbents can get out from under federal requirements. If you are concerned about call quality, talk to your ISP and see what is available.
VoIP has come a long ways even in the past year; call quality on a decent link is phenomenal- much, much better than PSTN. I understand there are technical requirements for PSTN in some situations, but my personal take is go VoIP end to end- far easier to manage and better quality.
 
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