Posts Tagged ‘telephone’

Buy a GN 9330E headset, get a FREE Polycom EHS cable!

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Chromis Technology has partnered with Polycom and Jabra to offer a FREE Polycom EHS cable with every GN 9330E headset purchased. Buy one for everyone in the office, get a FREE EHS cable with each headset! There is no limit to how many you can get, and no rebate forms to fill out, it’s really that simple! This is a $30.00 value! The more you buy, the more you save! This promotion is valid from January 5th to March 31, 2010. Click here to buy from the Chromis.com store or call 602.357.8070 to speak with a Chromis sales representative.

Equipped with new DECT 6.0 technology, this stylish, ultra light headset delivers exceptional sound up to 330 feet from your phone. Plus, it’s Wi-Fi friendly and secure, letting you talk without interference. With Up to 9 hours of talk time and 43 hours of standby time ensures your GN 9330E is always ready for action. The Noise-canceling microphone transmits your voice clearly, even in the noisiest environments. Two wearing styles let you choose from over-the-head or over-the-ear to suit your particular preference.

Polycom Electronic Hook Switch (EHS) enables remote operation of compatible Jabra wireless headsets with Polycom SoundPoint IP phones. The EHS adapter allows you to hear ring tones, answer and end calls, adjust the volume or even mute the call from the controls integrated into the headset. All quite convenient, when you are 300 ft. or more away from your desk.

The following Polycom Soundpoint IP telephones have been tested and support Electronic Hook Switch: 320/321/330/331 (These phones require a 2.5mm to RJ-9 adapter), 335, 430, 450, 550, 560, 650 and 670 desktop phones. Check the Jabra-Polycom compatibility matrix to make sure your phone and headset are compatible with each other.

Click here for detailed instructions on how to setup your Polycom phone with your Jabra headset.

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Posted in Headsets, Jabra, Polycom | No Comments »

Polycom Releases a new entry level phone: Introducing the SoundPoint IP 335

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

Polycom-soundpoint-ip-335Polycom introduced another phone to round out their entry-level line up this past weekend: The SoundPoint IP 335. I’ve been beta testing this phone for the past 6 weeks and have put it through the paces. And now that it’s been formally introduced, I can tell you my thoughts. (Spoiler Alert: This phone is spot on… They took the IP330/331, and made it right.)

The IP 335 contains all the features of the Polycom SoundPoint IP family that we’ve come to know and love: Polycom quality and looks, Integrated Power over Ethernet (PoE) support, interoperability with leading IP PBX (i.e. Switchvox) and Softswitch platforms, etc, all in an easy to configure package. But wait there’s more…

The IP 335 looks identical to the IP 330/331 but there are some very distinct differences. The first very noticeable difference is the high-resolution backlit display. It’s still not very big (102 x 33 pixels) but for the price (est. $199 MSRP) it’s respectable. The back lighting makes for a display that is much easier to read.

The second thing you’ll notice is the headset port. I have always had a huge hangup about the 2.5mm jacks that come on the IP 320/321/330/331. It really annoyed me that I could outfit an organization with IP450’s, 550’s, and 650’s and if we paired them with a headset, we would have to sell a completely different headset for the low end phones. IT managers hated it as well. Problem solved with the IP 335, it comes with a dedicated RJ-9 headset port with Electronic Hook Switch (EHS) support. To accommodate the smaller form factor the headset and EHS connections are made towards the top of the chassis as seen in the image below.

The back of the Polycom IP 335

And lastly, Polycom has made the barrier of entry into the HD Voice arena very low. At the $199 estimated MSRP, there is very little reason not to future proof your telephones on the low end with the IP 335’s support of the G.722 wideband codec commonly known as High Definition Voice.

To really beta test a new piece of hardware like this, I knew I needed to go all the way, so I temporarily retired my IP 650 and replaced it with the IP 335. At first I was a little nervous to lose all my “buttons”. But that quickly subsided once I really started making and receiving calls on the smaller phone. I have a Jabra GN9350e with EHS which I also used to connect to the IP 335. It worked like a gem. EHS connectivity was Polycom/Jabra flawless. HD Voice calls were crisp and clear on our Switchvox server. The only thing I missed was my real time buddy status that I get with my IP 650. But bottom line here is this: I could use this phone everyday. And with a low price tag, a lot of people will do just that.

Here are the highlights of the Polycom SoundPoint IP 335:

  • High-resolution backlit, graphical display
  • Two-line entry-level phone
  • Easy to configure and use
  • Integrated Power over Ethernet (PoE) support
  • Interoperability with leading IP PBX and Softswitch platforms
  • HD Voice support
  • XML microbrowser
  • Backlit 102 x 33-pixel, grayscale graphical LCD
  • Two port 10/100 Ethernet Switch
  • Dedicated RJ-9 headset port

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Posted in HD Voice, Polycom, Product Review, Soundpoint IP | 3 Comments »

Voice Over the Grand Canyon: A Switchvox Case Study

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

Grand Canyon Resort Corp (GCR) is the company that oversees Grand Canyon West. Grand Canyon West comprises the Western part of the Grand Canyon in Arizona and is contained within the Hualapai Nation. GCR chose Chromis Technology to install Digium’s Turnkey Asterisk PBX, Switchvox SMB, to create a VoIP solution to connect to remote locations that do not have traditional telephone facilities.

Grand Canyon West is an amazing canyon land that is very close to Laughlin, NV; Kingman, AZ; and Flagstaff, AZ. It is also a reasonably short drive from Las Vegas, NV; Sedona, AZ; and Phoenix, AZ. GCR has multiple attractions in Grand Canyon West including the increasingly famous Skywalk that takes you 70 feet from the rim of the Canyon and suspends you 4,000 feet above the Canyon floor! (Click on any of the images below for the high resolution version in a new window.)

Grand Canyon West Skywalk.

GCR has one Digium AA350 server at their headquarters in Peach Springs, AZ and three AA60 servers at three remote locations. The AA350 has a TE122 card that connects to a local PRI circuit. A satellite connection to each of the remote locations connects each site back to headquarters via IAX trunks and provides a connection to the public telephone network. The G.729 compression codec is used for calls between the servers and G.722 (HD Voice) and G.711 is used for calls internal to each server. In addition to the Digium Switchvox servers, GCR chose Polycom SoundPoint IP telephones.

A big challenge for GCR was connecting those remote facilities. A recently installed a satellite data network from HughesNet is serving up data and voice services to the remote locations. As is common with Satellite data links, excessive latency can wreak havoc on VoIP and make it difficult to have a normal, duplex conversation. GCR appreciates this fact and primarily focuses on providing telephone service to the edge of the Grand Canyon where there is no terrestrial connection to the rest of the world.

View of the Guano Cafe at Guano Point.

Indeed, latency proved to be high, but was often as low as 600ms. Unfortunately the latency results still cause over-talking (when one caller talks before the other caller is finished). The greater problem with the satellite link is jitter, or variation in the delay. During one test the latency varied from 600ms to 1100ms. GCR installed accelerators from Expand Networks to improve the performance over the satellite links.

Helicopter preparing to fly over Grand Canyon West

A beautiful view of Grand Canyon West

The latency and jitter fall just outside the range of acceptable, and the delivery of calls is certainly not what we’re used to back in civilization, but by using Digium’s VoIP technology, calls are now being made in and out of Grand Canyon West like they never have before. For more information on how Chromis Technology can help your business leap canyons, give us a call at 602.357.8070 or email us at info@chromis.com.

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Posted in Asterisk, HD Voice, Polycom, Switchvox, chromis, digium | 1 Comment »

IT Expo Wrap-up – Day 2

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

After a lack of time and an annoyance with my iPhone and the Wordpress application, I decided to just give a general wrap up of yesterday’s events…

I was able to catch the tail end of the Service Provider Roundtable moderated by Andy Abramson. Companies participating in the discussion were Packet8, Broadvox, Telefonica, TW Telecom, and MagicJack.

So my first real session of the day was the keynote session with John Frederiksen General Manager of Microsoft’s Response Point, and Digium CEO, Danny Windham. The hourlong keynote was split into two half hour speeches about each company’s take on the current VoIP market. While John was interesting to listen to and made some fascinating points, I was more interested in hearing what Danny had to say about the current state of Asterisk.

Keynote with Microsoft's John Frederiksen

Then the show floor opened and I waded through the over 150 exhibitors. One of the standouts was Snom (who Switchvox has now added to their Auto provisioning feature in their 4.0 release.) The Snom Snow edition phones are definitely different and caught my eye. I was able to get my hands on a Snom 820 so expect a review in the near future.

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I had a firsthand demo from Cashton Coleman from IonLogix. He showed me the inner workings of their Phone Manager 2008 platform. His blog is a great read and I think he has a fascinating take on the Asterisk world.

I also took a look at the AdTran TA900 gateway’s. They can be used to provide SIP trunks to legacy PBX systems. The system will convert SIP to PRI that the legacy system can speak hence “VoIPifying” the legacy system…

AdTran's TA900 series gateway.

I bumped into Mitchel Constantin (who you may remember as the developer of “Snap A Number” which Digium bought from him last year) while at the Switchvox 4.0 overview given by Switchvox’s Tristan Deganhardt. Mitchel’s new company, Weavver, is doing some interesting things in the Asterisk space. Stay tuned for news and products that Weavver is now currently developing and testing. I can’t talk about it publicly, but he is on to something…

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Shortly before the show closed I attended a “Bullseye routing” demo given by Interactive Intelligence. Now what caught my eye here is the award in the picture. “Best SMB Solution” was what it read… SMB Solution? There is nothing SMB about Interactive Intelligence and their solution. They don’t pretend to be SMB and will always claim to be an enterprise solution. I asked one of the InIn folks and she wasn’t sure what that was all about but would look into it. I even approached TMC’s Greg Galitzine about it and he told me he’d look into it. Greg I’m going to hold you to that and expect a response… :)

Interactive Intelligence

So that was Day 2. I’m heading over for Day 3 and hitting the airport this afternoon. Hopefully I win that Jeep they’re giving away.

-chromiszach

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Posted in Asterisk, Awards, General, IT Expo, digium | 2 Comments »