[plug] [OTish] IP Phones general info?

[Matt Kemner]

On Wed, 18 May 2005, quoth Steve Baker:

> I was thinking about the wonders of VOIP, about which I know little to
> nothing.  I was wondering if I could just plug in IP phones in each
> office, assign an IP address to the phone, tell it to call a phone at a
> particular IP address elswhere on the WAN and it would Just Work ?
>
> Do IP phones in fact actually work this way?

Yes, most IP phones support "IP dialing" - but typing IP addresses into
the phone's keypad is ugly :)

You can create speed dials, but the best option would be to install
an IP PABX such as Asterisk (on Linux - back on topic ;) which the
phones register to and allows you to set up a "dial plan" - each phone
gets a number (eg Perth gets 101, 102, 103 etc, Freo gets 201, 202, 203
etc) which you can dial directly.

The added benefit with Asterisk is that it can do that, and so much more.

It's a shame you missed my seminars on this topic (both at SLPWA and at
the Innovation festival)

 - Matt