How to choose a SIP handset - 31/1/11
Posted by Cloud Net on Mon, Jan 31, 2011 @ 03:31 AM
Making a decision on your SIP handsets is a matter of choosing
which benefits you’d like to enjoy and the price point. SIP phones are sophisticated pieces of equipment intended to allow you to benefit from all the communication features you need in an elegant package. They are all a world away from cheap analogue phones and even the simplest has a long feature list and can be configured through a web browser.
You can buy phones and then try and configure them yourself to work with any system. This is not a job for the faint hearted – none of them are simple to configure unless you are technically talented. However, you can buy them already configured from some business phone system suppliers such as Cloudnet.
The main manufacturers in the UK are Yealink, Grandstream, Snom and Cisco (previously known as Linksys). Siemens provide a specialist DECT handset. Cloudnet have an own label phone, the Cloudnet IP01 phone.
There are basically four levels of phone that we have identified although manufacturers classify phones in different categories. The levels are:
1) Entry phone – a budget conscious phone ideal for most office based personnel
2) Professional – a phone with more features aimed at the most demanding user
3) Executive – business phones designed with a high level of functions
4) Specialist phones – phones chosen for their special characteristics – such as a DECT phone
Customers are seeing the benefits of VoIP in increasing numbers which means that the market is fast moving. Business phones may well be added from time to time and others withdrawn.
Cloudnet have produced a review of the handsets on the market today in the UK.
You can check it out here www.cloudnetuk.com/ip-telephone-handsets
Good luck choosing the handset which matches your needs more accurately.