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Domain: snom.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to snom.com.
Comments · 7
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Re:cool
The Snom 190 has a full duplex speaker phone with echo cancellation. They typically go for about $195 when purchased in quantaties of 5 or more, though being Monday morning, I can't remember where I bought mine from at the moment...
It's a great phone with some interesting toys, including the ability to initiate a call via its web interface, which I rolled into a click-to-call page for our sales department's client info page (mostly because I was sick of hearing them misdial a number or sit there with dialtone on speaker while they tried to find the phone number...)
It also supports wave file ringtones, so your ringer is fully customizable (8 bit stereo if I remember correctly), along with the standard 8 built in tones. It's definitely worth a look.
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Re:Stop spreading FUD
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Open Source is like Open Standards but more so
I try to avoid relying on a product which has a single supplier or is not standards-compliant, even if it does meet the FSF's standards.
Standards compliance is a great thing. Recently I've been working on a VoIP deployment using SIP phones, Asterisk, and SER. One of the things that has impressed us the most about SIP telephony -- as contrasted with earlier VoIP and digital office phone systems -- is that the major vendors' products all interoperate at a basic level (placing and receiving calls) out of the box. This is a big contrast with earlier systems where (e.g.) Nortel sold you a Succession VoIP system, and nobody else's phones would work on it.
Most of these SIP phones are not open-source. Cisco's and Grandstream's phones are the usual binary-only deal -- compliant with open standards, but not even source-available. However, some SIP phones are open-source, notably SNOM phones, which run embedded Linux, and for which you can download an SDK from their Web site and build your own firmware image. Not too terribly surprisingly, SNOM's phones are not the slickest in appearance (that would be Cisco) or the cheapest (Grandstream) but they are, as far as we can tell, the most configurable.
Much the same seems to be true of VoIP gateway systems. Many people with whom I've spoken are using Cisco instruments as their gateway between SIP and the PSTN (conventional phone system). We are using Asterisk. Although it is hardly the easiest software to configure -- it's kind of like the Sendmail of VoIP, minus the security hell -- the Asterisk/Zaptel/Linux system is far more flexible than closed equivalents.
So what does this have to do with the advantages of open source? In a field of open standards, such as SIP telephony, open source can really shine. Open standards mean that there is little space for vendor lock-in, so vendors cannot exclude open source in the usual fashion. Open source is largely immune to the problem of treating standards as "tick-list features", which some appliance developers seem to suffer from: implementing the standard in a slapdash way so that you can mention it in the four-color glossies. ("Do we have, um, this 'SIP' thing?" "Uh
So how does this contrast with some of open source's notable weaker points, like user interface and graphics software mentioned in the article? It seems to me that open standards and open source both have their strengths in infrastructure as opposed to interface: not the buttons that users push on their desktops, but the underlying systemry that really makes the system (and the network) run. The advantage of Asterisk over proprietary PSTN gateways is much more than the advantage (if any!) of SNOM over Cisco SIP phones. The same is true in other infrastructural roles: the advantage of Apache over Microsoft IIS is much more than the advantage (if any!) of KDE over, say, the Mac OS X interface.
For the user of closed-source end-user systems (be they phones or desktop computers) the presence of open source in the infrastructure means that it can be customized by experts (IT staff or consultants) to the needs of the organization. It also often means that the infrastructure is simply higher-quality, which benefits everyone. The folks who get VoIP phones on their desks at my workplace don't care whether the gateway is Asterisk or Cisco, but they do care if we can implement features they request. Likewise, our Web designers using Dreamweaver benefit more from the fact that we use Apache (since their work is safer than it would be with IIS) than they would by using an open-source end-user tool.
To make a tangent, consider Microsoft. Their tradit
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Open Source is like Open Standards but more so
I try to avoid relying on a product which has a single supplier or is not standards-compliant, even if it does meet the FSF's standards.
Standards compliance is a great thing. Recently I've been working on a VoIP deployment using SIP phones, Asterisk, and SER. One of the things that has impressed us the most about SIP telephony -- as contrasted with earlier VoIP and digital office phone systems -- is that the major vendors' products all interoperate at a basic level (placing and receiving calls) out of the box. This is a big contrast with earlier systems where (e.g.) Nortel sold you a Succession VoIP system, and nobody else's phones would work on it.
Most of these SIP phones are not open-source. Cisco's and Grandstream's phones are the usual binary-only deal -- compliant with open standards, but not even source-available. However, some SIP phones are open-source, notably SNOM phones, which run embedded Linux, and for which you can download an SDK from their Web site and build your own firmware image. Not too terribly surprisingly, SNOM's phones are not the slickest in appearance (that would be Cisco) or the cheapest (Grandstream) but they are, as far as we can tell, the most configurable.
Much the same seems to be true of VoIP gateway systems. Many people with whom I've spoken are using Cisco instruments as their gateway between SIP and the PSTN (conventional phone system). We are using Asterisk. Although it is hardly the easiest software to configure -- it's kind of like the Sendmail of VoIP, minus the security hell -- the Asterisk/Zaptel/Linux system is far more flexible than closed equivalents.
So what does this have to do with the advantages of open source? In a field of open standards, such as SIP telephony, open source can really shine. Open standards mean that there is little space for vendor lock-in, so vendors cannot exclude open source in the usual fashion. Open source is largely immune to the problem of treating standards as "tick-list features", which some appliance developers seem to suffer from: implementing the standard in a slapdash way so that you can mention it in the four-color glossies. ("Do we have, um, this 'SIP' thing?" "Uh
So how does this contrast with some of open source's notable weaker points, like user interface and graphics software mentioned in the article? It seems to me that open standards and open source both have their strengths in infrastructure as opposed to interface: not the buttons that users push on their desktops, but the underlying systemry that really makes the system (and the network) run. The advantage of Asterisk over proprietary PSTN gateways is much more than the advantage (if any!) of SNOM over Cisco SIP phones. The same is true in other infrastructural roles: the advantage of Apache over Microsoft IIS is much more than the advantage (if any!) of KDE over, say, the Mac OS X interface.
For the user of closed-source end-user systems (be they phones or desktop computers) the presence of open source in the infrastructure means that it can be customized by experts (IT staff or consultants) to the needs of the organization. It also often means that the infrastructure is simply higher-quality, which benefits everyone. The folks who get VoIP phones on their desks at my workplace don't care whether the gateway is Asterisk or Cisco, but they do care if we can implement features they request. Likewise, our Web designers using Dreamweaver benefit more from the fact that we use Apache (since their work is safer than it would be with IIS) than they would by using an open-source end-user tool.
To make a tangent, consider Microsoft. Their tradit
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Re:It has already started
You mean like:
SIP Phone
or snom
or Grandstream
or Pulver
and that's just naming a few. -
Re:WhoowhooVoIP on Linux? Swell idea. Let's put the technology to communicate via voice on a platform used by about 15 people
You are a complete fucktard.
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Re:Kernel Series 2.2Where can I purchase this telephone?
That's odd, I thought for sure I included the link, O-well, TuxScreen, but sorry they are all out according to the web page, Sold Out, your best bet it to look around for someone who wants to sell them. I have two, but I'm not looking to sell them.
There are other Linux based phones out. One of them is SNOM. It is a VoIP phone as opposed to the TuxScreen which plugs in to the standard telephone jack. The TuxScreen has a 640x480 color screen while the SNOM has a tiny LCD window. One of my friends found the SNOM phone while browsing the web and I don't know anything more than what the web page says.