Tiggs

having watched the first series of 24 (all episodes over 3 days!) i NEEEEED a desk phone like they use in CTU. Touchscreen type thing......where do i get one?

Neil Smalley

We have them in our london office(but we can't make them use the 24 tone ). They are Cisco IP phones, so you can't use them as a standard home phone. I'm sure there are some phones where you can sample a ring tone and have it play back at you. I guess that's the closest you'll get

Tiggs

just found them as you posted!

cisco 7960......why cant i use it in my home office. it has 3 biz lines in so a cool ohone would be.....cool!

Neil Smalley

Is it IP telephony only. The ones we have are?

If not, group buy anyone?

Tiggs

IP.....what does that mean and can it be fixed to work on a std line?

SiCotty

Tiggs,

The 7960 uses the same protocol as most PC's use to talk on a computer network, so you plug a 7960 into your computer network. It gets an IP address the same as a computer and then has to use a soft PBX to make telephone calls. You can get a Cisco router to run the PBX software so that it can control the phones. The router can also handle any ADSL connections and firewalling you might want to do as well. For a small office it gets a little bit expensive compared to a normal ISDN key system.

The phones use a specially formatted wav file for the ring tone, so you can customise the ring like most mobile phones. The ring in 24 belongs to an Avaya digital telephone system and is not standard on the 7960.

The 7960 does not have a touch screen, this is only available on the 7970. A 7960 is about £300 each with a 7970 being about £600.

Si

Tiggs

sounds cool enough...how much is a router?

SiCotty

I would think the router on its own with 2 ISDN BRI interfaces, 2x interfaces to support fax machines and an ADSL interface would cost about £3500. This would also include the firewall and security software. You then need a reasonable switch and the phones.

Si

carl

Would you need all that junk? Gradwell.com offers a virtual PBX service -- and as far as I can see all you need to do is plug an IP phone into your LAN. If you've got a firewall, I guess you'd need to open up the ports for H323 and SIP.
http://www.gradwell.com/news/shownews.php?id=75

SiCotty

The 7960 does run a SIP load. The main disadvantage of the above service is that you loose your PBX if you have problems with the ADSL line or the bandwidth becomes heavily contended.

Si

carl

Yes, but the kit outlined in your proposal is fine for a 50-person office, but I believe that Tiggs is a "one man band". If you go for some sort of business class ADSL (or SDSL) with an SLA things should be OK.

As for the bandwidth contention -- I'm sure you can mark up the SIP traffic with a TOS indicator, or buy in some sort of MPLS service.

Tiggs

i have 3 lines into my office and two desks (2 man band)

i'll check out gradwell

Bonehead

We've got them at work - they're utter crap.

They keep faulting and have to be replaced.

And we cant get the 24 ringtone !

P1Fanatic

Got the 24 ringtone on my Nokia mobile - drives the mrs nuts

Weve moved to Avaya phones and they dont have that ringtone. Our old Lucent Turrets had the exact ringtone. Was funny as used to work in a NOC and there would be 4 of us on shift watching 24 all night and the work phone would ring and we'd not even notice.

Simon.

SiCotty

Carl, I never said that this would be suitable for a small three person office, I just answered the question. I do remember saying it gets a little bit expensive.

Simon, when lucent spun off their pbx/networking division is was renamed Avaya.

Si