Polycom VVX 310 Revisit (and a Subject on SIP Telephones)

A picture of a Polycom VVX IP telset
A Polycom VVX 310 behind a counter at Papa Ginos, a Boston/New England area pizza chain.

 

Some websites you run into show you photos of SIP enabled IP telsets, but the interesting thing, is while it can run on top of an Asterisk for an example; a lot of times they are not. Many open source deployments claims on other sites are heresy, especially if not confirmed. I can say where I live many of these SIP phones go out on the Internet with no box on site. And it’s roaring in and it makes me concerned about small business more vulernable   to VOIP than enterprises a decade ago.

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POTD: Ugly Avaya Blue Conference set – Southern New Hampshire University

We’re back in business on the ‘Gram that I put on abbreviated dial that I call Instagram!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bda7P_-nPgD/?taken-by=clickfordsmuseumoftelephony

I’m not in college, and nor do I intend to. I happen to visit Southern New Hampshire University on a semi frequent basis with meeting some great people.  (SNHU if you are not aware is in fact is a non profit university that happens to be in Southern New Hampshire, for those people who learn over the Internet from say someplace like Las Vegas and claim they are an SNHU student/grad/alumni.)

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POTD: [New Generation] Avaya Red Partner 6D Telset

Today’s Phone of the Day features a [Newer Generation] ahem “Euro Series II” Partner 6D set of a place where I spend a couple days a week with some people who help me get through my life.

I have not referred this to “Euro” or “Euro Series II” because those were obscenely bad greymarket rumors spread like motherfrecin wildfire on eBay in the early 2000s (“Euro”) and the 46xx like models in 2005 (“Euro Series II”.) I am the last to defend Avaya currently, but they would frown upon infringing the brand of the phone system. While it was common folklore that it was European inspired when AT&T did the design in 1994/1995, it’s never been officially confirmed by Avaya or it’s decedents. And yes you read that right “AT&T”. This model was released about 1995, over a year before the Lucent spinoff. Some sites like my old town’s library before to moving out in 2010 had these Euro series sets but with the AT&T brand.  So people, PLEASE do not call these sets like this one “Series II”. You’re spreading lies and misinformation!

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POTD: Analog Sets, TRYP, Midtown Manhattan, NY

 

 

This is the cordless phone at the hipster hotel I had stayed when I was in New York City back in October.  As you can tell it’s one of those Teledex, analog sets. No hotel I’ve ever stayed had any native phone system’s sets in the rooms. I guess it’s above my paygrade to stay at a five-star hotel that may have digital or IP sets. I do know the Teledex markets an ‘iPhone” (surprised that didn’t hit Apple’s or Cisco’s lawyers!) that’s a generic SIP phone that functions like an analog set but works on top of an IP network.

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POTD: Urban Outfitters – West 34th Street

Being the Avaya Red fanboy that I am, I am always happy to see any phones from the legacy AT&T/Bell System days. As I have stated before, this vendor had 90%+ of the Fortune 500 and then lost it entirely with a company with legacy roots that was 125 years old.

Taken in October of 2017, I am unable to tell what set this is, it could be a 1416 or a 1616. The second digit model numbers  what type of signaling it does to make them ether be a “telephone” or a “terminal”. Please read the section on “voice terminals” to remind yourself why your desk phone is not actually that…

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POTD: TRYP Hotel, Midtown Manhattan

In today’s installment of phones other than Cisco seen in The Big Apple, this was where I and my companion stayed during the week of the NY NAB Show. Known as TRYP (probably an acronym for “trip” though my mother called it T.R.Y.P. for a while) is a hipster themed hotel on West 35th between Seventh and Eighth. An independent franchise to Wyndham, this hotel is in one little building. I think it’s like a motel in a low rise building. There are fifteen stories and you can see the flagship New Yorker from the top.

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POTD: Tick Tock Diner, Midtown Manhattan, NY

If you ever visit the West Side of Manhattan, and you like an awesome breakfast, go to the Tick Tock Diner, underneath the New Yorker on Eighth Ave between West 34th and 35th streets. Or should I say the iconic Art-Deco, classic mid 20th Century style of the Wyndham owned hotel? Anyways, I had a Smore French Toast.  Something along those lines…

Enough with food porn on The Museum, but you wanted to see their phones right?

Left looks like the one for the diner, a NEC set for their Electra line, and a Mitel 5330E VOIP set with a backlit display and perhaps a Gigabit Ethernet connection! This is probably used for the hotel communications, and for the use of room service. I can say Mitel is used at these clusters of hotels, because I stayed in TRYP, and I saw my phones on the front desk…

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POTD: B&H Store, New York City

I’ve received many B&H catalogs ether as hand me downs, and runins with people on the West Coast, or in the mailings these days, but I never made it there till October. I’m familiar with J&R in the Lower Manhattan area though.

Located on the West Side of Manhattan, just a couple blocks away from the Garment District (the off Fifth Ave stores that go from West 34th & 5th to 35th and 8th. I made the visit since it was on the way to the Javits Center, for that fluke of an East Coast NAB Show. This place is a must if you like broadcast grade A/V equipment (the enterprise class for videographers, audio, what have you.) I got studio grade headphones there, and you can buy any professional and commercial class stuff there. And if you can’t make it to New York, you can go online.

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