Wireless IP phone recommendation

Hi,

I need about 50 Wireless IP Phones working with Asterisk for an installation in a hospital. They need wireless phones for all doctors and nurses to be accessible 24/24 and 7/7.

So it is crucial for the phones to be reliable and reachable all the time and not to loose connection every 45 minutes like my UTstarcom handset.

Also, the ease of setup and use, the sound quality, the battery life are very important.

Has anyone already used wifi phones in a large installation and with what phones? Any problem encountered during or after installation?

Any recommendation is a greatly appreciated.

Daniel

we’ve played with a couple, and haven’t been that impressed by either…

the first was a zyxel p-2000. the phone has pretty good sound quality, but it’s a pain to configure (have to do most things through the web interface) and the buttons are hard to use…dialing a number would require pressing the 3 key very hard before it would register, and this happened on all three phones we had.

we also have a hitachi ip5000, and it has a nicer interface and better buttons, but it is even more complicated to configure. it seems to have about the same range as the other phone, maybe slightly worse.

i read that the new linksys phone isn’t bad, but isn’t great, either…there are a couple of seimens models that i was looking at, as our company executives will all be moving towards wireless voip in the coming months…

i know this wasn’t much help, but i’ve had experience with those two phones…of the two, i like the feel of the hitachi better, but think the range and sound quality was better on the zyxel. keep in mind that we bought these for testing and haven’t really used them all that much - a couple of users are doing our live ‘beta’ testing right now.

I too would be using them in a hospital, and have been researching the linksys phones per they use 802.11g, but have not taken the plunge yet.

Please let me know if you guy have any updates.

Thanks,
Randy

We have ~15 of the hitachi ip5000s set up for one of our customers. The range is alright I guess, figure a good portion of that has to do with the APs they are using. They sound good, and I didnt find them to be that much of a hassle to configure (after the first few, it goes pretty fast). I prefer doing all of it through the web interface, so for me that was a plus.

These phones are also seem to be a bit fragile. They are using them in a shop, and we’ve already had the speakers go out on 3 of them. I hope thats not a trend, especially for the price.

We have a few of the zyxel phones in testing for another customer and I dont care much for them compared to the hitachis.

Battery life seems to be about the same on both… lasting through a full 8 hour day. I can imagine with the hospital personel that the phones will need to run longer and are probably used more.

Good luck, if anyone finds the perfect wireless IP phone… I would love to hear about it =)

Lucas Keller
Magma Networks

Just got a Linksys WIP300 (five hours ago). So far so good. Nice voice quality, nice look. After I use it for a few more days I will report back and give you a more detailed review.

On the WIP300, is it possible to transfert a call. Ex: I’m Speaking with someone and I want to transfert it to the receptionnist.

The manual does not specify anything regarding transfer. I know I can use the asterisk transfer function, but I want to know if the phone have is own function.

Thx

[quote=“Dimitripietro”]On the WIP300, is it possible to transfert a call. Ex: I’m Speaking with someone and I want to transfert it to the receptionnist.

The manual does not specify anything regarding transfer. I know I can use the asterisk transfer function, but I want to know if the phone have is own function.

Thx[/quote]

Yes. Put the caller on hold, then dial the receptionists number, then press transfer via the soft button.

Nice Thanks you.

Hi, everyone. Brand new Asterisk (Trixbox) user. Love it! Getting ready to set up 3 Asterisk installation for a customer of mine in the next month or so.

Anyway, to the real reason for my post…I just received a Hitachi WIP5000 and I’m having a bear of a time getting it to work with Trixbox. Simply put, I can’t get it to register and it says the user is not found. I’ve checked, re-checked and re-re-checked that the user name and pwd are correct and match on freePBX and the WIP5000 config. Still no go. Got great signal, wide open WiFi no encryption, etc.

Can anyone offer some suggestions? I don’t have much hair left! :wink:

Thanks in advance…
Alvin

**** Edit **** Just wanted to save someone the trouble of replying. I got it working. The phone number parameter was the culprit. I thought it was for CID Outgoing when, in fact, it’s what was included in the registration for Trixbox.

quick q, for those working with the Linksys handsets how is the remote provisioning setup? easy to use? is there one?

so how is it?

I, too, have recently received a Linksys WIP300. After testing out the Hitachi WIP5000 I got the WIP300 to test. I like it much better. The network aquiring works much better and I haven’t had the problem of it dropping the network periodically like I’ve heard others have. The Hitachi has that problem, it drops the network periodically and you have to re-register, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t…on the same network!

Anyway, I’m pretty happy with the WIP300 and will consider that phone for the deployment that I have for VoIP at a customer of mine. For the money (almost 50% more) and the problems, the Hitachi won’t get my vote.