[Aaug] RE: GrandStream Review

[Bill Learning]

That’s it!  

Thank you very much. 

I did test the POE portion as the powers that be decided to go with POE,
I tested it on a 48 PORT and a 24 port Cisco switch.  The phone says 7
watts load, and that is ,4 watts more then Cisco cut of 6.4 watts when
it does its query, so you can only run 24 Phones on a 48 port switch
without Cisco modifications. 

The 24 Port has the same power supply as the 48 ports (370 Watts).
Soothe 24 port switch runs 24 phones.

I also had the GXP Side car come in and tested it as well. Worked great
for what we need to do with it. 
 

Bill Learning
blearning at speakeasy.net


 


-----Original Message-----
From: Solomon, Arnold C. [mailto:ACSOLOMO at southernco.com] 
Sent: Friday, March 30, 2007 9:56 AM
To: Bill Learning; steve.odom at verso.com
Cc: sph at xelatec.com
Subject: GrandStream Review

Hope this helps!

Arnold

-----Original Message-----
From: aaug-bounces at atlaug.com [mailto:aaug-bounces at atlaug.com] On Behalf
Of Bill Learning
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2007 9:54 PM
To: 'ATLANTA * USERS GROUP'
Cc: 'Greco, Christopher'
Subject: RE: [Aaug] Re: [ale] The world didn't end

I reviewed this phone way back when ...

Here is the review posted to VOIP INFO... 

not a good Phone at all
by blearning on Monday 25 of July, 2005 [16:22:17 UTC]
(:cry:)

I have dismantled the phone to get the intercom to work, what a mistake
and disappointment.

The microphone and speaker are tied together, raising the volume on the
Speaker will raise the volume on the mic, not a good thing

It works fine if you carefully remove the microphone, stick it out the
side of the phone, on a cloth and put a fairly heavy coffee mug on it.
You can hear well and no feedback, it is kind of fumy looking that way,
but hey it works. Could be a feature I guess.

The speaker and mic’s volume on good phones are normally adjusted
separately, a couple of rheostats would have solved the issue, but now
there are literally thousands of these phones out there that are
useless.

I give the phone an F for failed to check if it actually works
correctly.

End of post ******************** 

SO yah I do change my mind ... if the opportunity presents itself.  And
I do remember the coffee mug on the speaker phone.  LAUGHING 

Anyhow the test was pretty intensive.  We had an early version of the
grandstream not a great phone and it was more a phone you would buy at
toys r us.  I hoped it would not be picked as I knew what a mistake it
was going to be.  

It sat in amongst phones ranging from $40 the HO1 china phone up to a
Snom and Cisco latest and greatest,  no video phones.  My presentation
was "you really have to look at the features of the phone and decide
what it is important to you as users" I like a simple phone, don't make
me push a bunch of buttons.  And really I don't need callerid. A lot of
the feature on a phone never get used but you pay for them.

So I set them all up in a test, and the committee 6 or 8 of us ( mostly
non telco types) decided that the snom and cisco had too many features
for what they needed to do and the $40 dollar phone had a $40.00 flavor
to it.

They picked the grandstream a mid range price phone... even though the #
key did not work in the demo. I told them it didn't work on this phone
and if we liked it we should order some in and test them again properly
and fully.  

I didn't know if the phones we had scavenged worked at all. And to be
fair we would have to test their selection in more detail way anyhow.
Boring so far ... right 

We had ordered six Grandstream GXP2000 Ver 2.0, I configured them and
set up the demo, I tested the phones for about 2 weeks, adjusted the
codecs, playing with the features, and testing the flaws I knew about
the MIC and Speaker and earpiece, the weight of the handset and the
weight of the phone itself.  

I was totally amazed that these grandstreams are even named the same
everything tested flawlessly and I remember from before that they had
lost their registration occasionally, it didn't happen then and they
still staying registered over 30 days.  

I had not experienced one problem with these phones at all, not one and
for a street price of $80.00 it is a keeper.  I tested all the lights
and all the buttons, MWI, did BLF and all kinds of things, I even
dropped it a few times as well. 

  The weight of the handset feels like you have a phone in your hand and
the tangled cord test was awesome the phone didn't move .. 

Speaker phone test, I used it as a speaker phone in a 20 by 30 room,
there was no background noise to speaker and I could hear everything the
person said as they walked around the room without a problem.

The buttons are easy to get at, for some reason they seem out of place
for me, I think because it is a spacious lay out. 

We then had the users come back and I told them how to use the phone.
Calling, transfer, conference call park, call retrieve, talk, listen,
record, Voicemail, DTMF stuff, MWI, Message retrieval, and the intercom
was a real hit and sounded great. 

We separated the phones into separate rooms and there was no noise that
I could notice. 

All in all GREAT WORK GRANDSTREAM  

I did not test the POE, I don't think you should run power and data in
the same cable, but we had it tested against a Cisco switch and it
apparently works well, I still don't think power and data should be on
the same cable and will not until someone can show me that running data
cables by power lines don't affect the data, I know it does and I can
hear it.   

So I say you had better give grand streams at least another look as this
phone is absolutely incredible.    

SO I phoned Grandstream directly, and I talked to a lady name Lieh, I
think her name was no not a sales organization. 

I point out asked them what did you do to this phone, and told them I
had heard rumors that they did something and mentioned of course my
previous review .. 

They did replace everything except the outside chassis, everything, new
dsps on a new circuit boards, new firmware new code, new everything.    

GREAT WORK GRANDSTREAM


Bill Learning
Oscar Wilde said: "Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like
excess."

-----Original Message-----
From: aaug-bounces at atlaug.com [mailto:aaug-bounces at atlaug.com] On Behalf
Of Odom, Steve
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2007 10:48 AM
To: ATLANTA * USERS GROUP
Cc: Greco, Christopher
Subject: RE: [Aaug] Re: [ale] The world didn't end

To all AAUG members:
I tested and now have installed Aastra 9133i IP phones this weekend. I
have found that these phones are very well built and the audio on both
the speakerphone and handset is the best I have tested. One of the
unique features is a backup proxy. This allows for redundant server or
broadband access. If the connection is lost on the primary path, the
phone will use the backup proxy to connect to a backup server or through
a different broadband connection. In addition to having BLF, the phone
also has BLA or Bridge Line Appearance. This allows group shared pickup
capabilities. All phones within a group will ring on an incoming call,
only one phone is allowed to answer, however if the call is put on hold,
anyone within the group can pick up the call by pressing the lit button
assigned to the group. This is a great feature for a call center with
many separate groups. Also a great feature for home use is you can
assign all phones to the same group. The quality and rugged feel to this
phone is much better than my Grandstream GXP-2000 which I have been
using for about a year now. I have had 4 Grandstream phone failures
within that timeframe, 3 of which are POE related failures. I have a
loud Buzz on 2 phones and the other quit working with a POE connection.
I have now plugged them in using the power module, and they work again.
I understand that Grandstream has recently released an upgraded version
of this phone, and according to Bill Learning, this new version is
greatly improved, especially the audio and speaker phone function. They
apparently added some weight to the phone giving the feel and appearance
of higher quality, (it also helps to prevent the phone from falling onto
the floor when lifting the handset when the cord gets a little tangled).
I am hoping that Bill will give us his assessment when he concludes his
evaluation. Also, do not install the latest Beta firmware on the
GXP-2000 as it has many bugs. I found the lowest price for this phone
($125) at IPphone.com
http://www.ipphone-warehouse.com/products/a1720-0131010-05.html?src=aast
ra9133i&gclid=CPfn2Pq774oCFRJfUAodTRak_Q 
Hope this information is helpful to some of you, please submit your
evaluations of other phones or hardware to our group when you try
something new.

Steven A Odom
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