PROVU DISTRIBUTES AASTRA SIP PHONES

aastra
aastra office

We are delighted to announce today that ProVu have been appointed as Distributor for the Aastra range of SIP phones and accessories.

Aastra is recognised globally as a leading supplier of enterprise telephony equipment and their SIP handset range is a natural fit that enhances the ProVu product portfolio. Their excellent SIP handset range is both stylish, functional and competitively priced.

With ProVu entering a phase of rapid growth and seeing demand for its automated fulfilment and provisioning services increase, we feel it is an essential part of our strategy to be able to offer our customers these services across an even wider range of quality products.

Stock and Pricing
All the Aastra models are in stock and available for next day delivery, you can view our trade pricing at our on-line trade price list below.

http://pricing.provu.co.uk/

(If you do not have a log in for the price list just email us and let us know.)

Ordering
As with all our products Aastra phones can be ordered by, phone or email.

Or for all our customers using our ProSys on-line ordering the Aastra phones are now listed and can be ordered via the ProSys on-line ordering system.

Provisioning
Our automated Provisioning platform has now been developed to accommodate the Aastra phones.

So for all our service provider customers and PBX installers wanting to deploy phones in volume or on a regular basis you can now order Aastra phones and have them provision automatically out of the box.

For more Information on the range of Aastra phones please visit:

http://www.provu.co.uk/aastra.html

Thomson Routers

ProVu are now stocking the Thomson TG585 V8 routers.

This is primarily for ITSP and installer customers so they can buy the phones and router from one supplier.

We can also set the ADSL username and password in the router before shipping.

Protalk SIP Door Entry Phone with Gradwell

The scenario is that you are using one of our ProTalk Door Entry SIP phones with a Gradwell account and forwarding the call to a mobile phone. You might want to do this to talk to people at your door when really, you aren’t in or for when you aren’t near a desk phone in your place of work.

If you still want to operate the relays in the door phone (either to activate a door opener, turn on a light etc…) then you type in a certain sequence on the phone you are using. This sequence is transmitted back to the door phone using what is known as DTMF tones. In order for this to work with Gradwell accounts we’ve found that you need to use their Outbound Proxy.

Firstly, make sure you are on a recent firmware (v1.48 at the time of writing), you can get this from ProVu if you need to upgrade. Then set the device up as follows in the SIP Parameters page:

  • SIP Proxy Server Address – nat.gradwell.net

  • SIP Proxy Server Port – 5082

  • SIP Registrar Server Address – sip.gradwell.net

  • SIP Registrar Server Port – 5060

Then your username/password as Gradwell will have given you.

This may also be the case for other providers as well as Gradwell, so if you are getting one-way-audio problems or DTMF problems in general, ask them about Outbound Proxy.

More info on the ProTalk SIP Door Entry range here.

Differences between SARK and SnomONE PBX

I’m being asked which is better, SARK or SnomONE a lot at the moment. Rather than a Harry Hill style fight, I’d thought up a quick comparison list. I don’t believe either system is “better” than the other, they have their own advantages which work in certain scenarios. Horses for courses…

Advantages of SnomONE over SARK:

– 10 user version free and downloadable.

– Windows, Linux & Mac versions (nice easy installers for each although I’m yet to try the Mac version as I don’t have a Mac).

– software only (some people see this as an advantage)

– PnP snom phone config (even slicker than Adopt in SARK)

Advantages of SARK over SnomONE:

– complete solution inc hardware (some people see this as an advantage)

– supports any SIP/IAX etc… end point (snomone is basically snom phones only apart from the odd one or two periphery devices)

– extensible : you can write your own Asterisk code and modify existing code.

– 100s if not 1000s of 3rd party bits of software support Asterisk to do all sorts of things. Including call centre reporting, operator panels, call billing etc…etc…

– choice of telephony interfaces for connecting to ISDN lines.

– custom code gives options for much more complicated call routing scenarios.

That’s all I can think of right now, this isn’t an exhaustive list 🙂

Snom joins compatible devices program for Microsoft Lync 2010

Following on from the recent news that the Snom300 is compatible with OCS 2007R2, Snom have also joined the “Compatible Devices Program for Lync 2010”. This means that it is continuing it’s development of “OCS” firmware to include the new features that will be present in the future Lync release.

Lync is the new name Microsoft has given to the next version of OCS, it was generally referred to as Wave14 until this official name was released. Lync is currently at the public beta stage so not yet ready for production use.

ProVu will be testing Lync with Snom phones in due course and Snom themselves will be developing the new features possible with Lync.

Microsoft list Snom 300 as a compatible OCS device

Last week we brought you the news that the snom 300 has achieved official certification from Microsoft for use with the Office Communication Server 2007 R2. This is big news for any one involved with snom phones as OCS is gradually making it’s way into some big corporate customers.

Anyway, the reason for this second blog is that you can now find the Snom 300 listed on Microsoft’s Compatible Devices Program website here:

Phones and Devices for Microsoft Office Communicator

This is the first step in getting all snom phones with OCS firmware certified, this should just be a matter of time since the firmware on each is basically the same code base.

Snom approved by Microsoft

Snom300 phones are now approved by Microsoft for connection to Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2

Just to confuse you, OCS is is being renamed to Microsoft Lync

Read Snom Press release

Of course, ProVu as a Snom distributor are today launching their Snom OCS support service. We can support Snom phones on Microsoft OCS Platforms.

Disable SIP ALGs on Thomson routers

This has cropped up a few times of late.

You need to telnet into the router:

Administrator is the default user on the box.

You should get something similar to below after doing this.



------------------------------------------------------------------------



                            ______  Thomson TG585 v7

                        ___/_____/

                       /         /  7.4.20.3

                 _____/__       /  

               _/       /\_____/___   Copyright (c) 1999-2008, THOMSON

              //       /         / 

      _______//_______/         / _/______

     /      /            /    / /        /

  __/      /            /    / /        / _\__

 / /      /     \_______/    / /        / /   /

/_/______/___________________/ /________/ /___/  

           ___________                   /

 \_        /          /              \___/

          /          /                 /

     \_____/          /         \________/

          /__________/            /

             _____        /_____/

            /    /      /___/

            /____/      /

                  /___/

             \____/



------------------------------------------------------------------------

_{Administrator}=>

connection unbind application=SIP port=5060
saveall <Enter>

Snom M9 has arrived

Snom M9 phones are in stock and are shipping.

I’ve you’ve a back order then they will be shipped today.

M9 is the new DECT phone from Snom. Supports 9 IP account, 9 handsets and 4 calls.<%ThickBox(http://www.provu.co.uk/imgs/snom/snom_m9.jpg|Snom M9)%>

Door Entry on Cisco Call Manager

If you are planning to use a protalk door entry system with Cisco call manager, then you may be interested in this.

Lionel Carter from Norisco Limited (a reseller in London) had this to say:

I got it all set up on our Cisco Call Manager. Pretty simple really, all works fine. Hopefully will get it installed into the new office next week when we have access to the existing latch mechanism.