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Re: [LUG] Own Asterisk Server

 

On Mon, 3 Aug 2009, tom wrote:

Neil Stone wrote:
...
Headsets and soft phones are ok for home use.. but for people to accept
a voip system in a business you really need to look in to hard phones,
they just look and feel (and regularly sound) right..


I must confess that all the cheap headsets I've tried have been as good,
if not better that 'hard' phones 'audiowise*'- and anyone who uses a
phone a lot needs somewhere to take notes - Oh look a computer - type
type drop phone - Can I have hands free please...oh look a blue tooth
headset for about £6 or 20 times that for a hands free 'voip' phone.
Now if you want a VOIP videophone for £200 (that's a phone with a £10
webcamera in it)... just put it on the monitor above to the built in
webcamera...

I get the feel that a lot of VOIP hardware is just leftover thinking.
The computer CAN do it all.

Leftover thinking - intersting phrase... However it's what people are used to.

So each to their own. The dek phone is not going to go away soon - if ever. PC adapters do exist and will continue to evolve - corded or not, as will separate headsets for phones.

Some people do not want to work with a headset on all day.

VoIP video phones are under £200. I have a set I use for family use.

From my own experience, the headset isn't the weak-link - it's the PC hardware (especially the microphone input) and the soft-phone software in-use. One extremely infuriating artifact is the lack of noise cancellation in cheap headsets - that means the person at the far-end hears every key-click you make. Good noise cancelling corded headsets start at about £60 and go up from there...

* by audiowise I mean how they sound to record or listen. A headset is
generally in a working position and handset is often not

Only if you wear the headset all the time. The majority of office workers that I've dealt with don't. From that point, you're in a worse position - put the headset on, find the soft-phone app on the screen, click the answer button vs. lift handset and say hello.

- especially
when your taking notes with it jambed between ear and shoulder while you
build up neck stress for another call to claimsdirect for injuries at
work. Just get an easy break connector for when you take a walk with
them on...

So get a desk phone that supports speakerphone mode if you don't like headsets. That's what I do, anyway, but I do have a relatively quiet office. I do use a headset at times too - connected to my desk phone. I do not find them comfortable for long term use though.

My phone rings, I check the display to see who it is - I don't need keyboard focus to change mid typing, nor have an annoying pop-up appear on my screen, and neither do my customers it seems.

Gordon
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