VOIP

POTD: Avaya 9650 IP Deskphone

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This little fancy gadget is the 9650 IP Deskphone from Avaya. Introduced in 2006, to replace the 6 year old 4600 Series; these phones were initially thought of as clones to Cisco given some of the similarities. This was also Avaya’s first sets to move away from the simple to use user interface, to the flip phone like functionality (to change ringers, you do not press Conference when idling, and most one touch features doubled or doubled in a half.) Sadly the legacy AT&T, then Lucent to become Avaya’s simple, telephone line focused digital or IP sets were never applauded. (This is why I rave this company I used to kinda favor.)

In 2008, similar paper-desi sets came along as the 1600 Series, and digital sets 9500 and 9400 series and 1400 series for paper desis. In the Avaya world, people like to choose to express how they want to assign their buttons. In color and their own words. Some sets that use screens instead do not allow the systems administrator to use their own form of assigning buttons. If you want to put blame, blame the customer, but remember the customer is the one whose right, not the vendor at least in traditional American business norms.

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POTD: TRYP Hotel, Midtown Manhattan

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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: B&H Store, New York City

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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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POTD: Local Papa Gino’s

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Sadly, where I live, Avaya or Nortel isn’t “alive and well” unlike another site I follow. Nortel has disappeared in my state in public and private entities in lieu of Cisco years ago and Avaya Red has slowly disappeared too.

On a Christmas Eve tradition before I was born, my family would order pizza out at the local Papa Ginos, that is local chain with more than one hundred stores around the Greater Boston region, basically in four of the six New England states. It’s reputation is fresh quality pizza of with quality ingredients. Over the years Papa’s has had exclusive marketing deals with the local Boston teams such as the Red Sox and currently the Patriots.

The chain has used AT&T products going back to the days of Western Electric. This location I had frequented growing up had used one of those 10 line 1A2 wall mount Key telephones till a cutover around 2001 to a Partner ACS system. The only ComKey I’ve ever seen in production was another store nearby, and that had cutover to a Partner circa 2001 or 02.

I’ve been to mostly the New Hampshire stores, and D’Angelo the sub shop, is a sister brand to Papa Ginos. I don’t recall them using any phone systems, the one nearby me, that I took a few years back with an Avaya van uses POTS phones.

But today, just the next block away from that same D’Angelo, I noticed  this phone. Nope, its not a 9600 Avaya IP or 9500 DCP set. No, worse a Polycom VVX 310 set. (I haven’t been here for a while, some days I normally walk here because it’s not that far away from my home.)

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Phone of the Day: Cisco 7841 – Local School

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In 2025 I stand corrected. It’s the 7841 series set. In 2016, there was no 6841 yet. The following year. Cisco opened up their fancy phones to customers who had no intentions to use it against a CUCM. The 6800s was planned to replace the SPA series VOIP phones and fully deprecated the SPA by 2020. 

But then the 7800s were open too. Cisco would then market both the key based 7800 and 8800 screen phones for Third Party Call Control or 3PCC or now it’s called something like Multiplatform Phones or MPP.  Forgot Aruba was the brand for HP’s networking at that time. 

I spotted this overpriced telephone in an elementary school during a late fall craft fair. It had a nice turnout, to the point I want to be a vendor and sell geeky fashion items! I say overpriced because this is located in a community where it’s ultra-conservative. The town I live in is extremely frugal in finances and keeps the government small. On the town government, the board would zero-out any proposals to their IT department, which is lead by a “coordinator” that grew up in the days before IP, Windows Servers, etc. In the world of compliance and technical adherence, they run the town side like a mum and pop shop.

The school district’s offices (a seperate agency) is housed in two ranch houses, near the local high school that are commercially zoned. This is most likely where their CallMangler (I can’t help to resist) is located. I’ve spotted a 7900 series in one of the offices when I walked by in that same school.

I’ve seen on the town side using Cisco 7940 sets and 7960 sets since I moved in 2010. The town to kinda leak my location is the largest single voting place that got national attention during the primaries last winter  if people who don’t know where I live.

I do not follow municipal matters as much anymore, but a cutover to VOIP in the school system occurred sometime in the range of fiscal years 2011 to 2013 because the previous phone systems were end of life. I do not know the systems prior to because I didn’t attend school here. What’s ironic is there is an Aruba wireless access point shown here plugged on the PC jack. The town’s fire department had a consumer grade Linksys plugged into their PC port on their Cisco sets…

In the town I did grow up, we had TIE systems in the late 1980s-late 90s then went to Telrad in the school district. The elementary school that I went to got their Telrad in 2002. The Telrads were still there when I moved out of town in 2010.

Review: Polycom VVX 310 IP Phone

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Happy Thanksgiving! I’m recovering from my dinner, and thought some updates were in order. Today I’m doing a review of these free to me Polycom VVX IP sets.

I found them at a local business that apparently moved. They were outside for “Free” so hey, why not?

These phones are an improvement from the SoundPoint IP sets that I still loathe to this day. Such improvements: you can adjust the set using a plastic thing on the back to three levels; second there is a tuck in space for the handset or headset cable. And BLFs most likely use the AUX jack and doesn’t do that infrared thing that I had doubted the reliability for a long time. Also in this range features wideband calling or high dynamic (HD) voice quality; and a backlit display (seen here) and a single LED with multi colors to show lamp status (or should I say in IT-speak “presence”?) and supports nearly 24 unique lines (or should I say “SIP sessions”?) It has cute screensavers too. If you want to see it, I have posted on my friends-only Instagram feed from mid October.

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Phone of the Day: LEGOLAND Discovery Center | Boston, Massachusetts

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Located just north of the Boston city line, in Somerville, Massachusetts, the LEGOLAND Discovery Center is located in the Assembly Row neighborhood. Unlike the LEGOLAND in California, or Florida, this place is an indoors given the climate of Boston, hazy hot summers, and very cold winters (honestly more of the former than the latter in recent years.)

Anyways these sets of pictures is a workspace of lady named Megan, whom builds little things shown in the Miniland section of the attraction. According to their Facebook page, she is a certified through Lego’s Master Builder Academy.  Things such as characters from The Lego Movie, Wally (and his galpal) from the Boston Red Sox, the four colored puzzle Autism Awareness, etc. I actually met this lady at the Red Sox game that was Lego themed on the 31st. See telephony related post. In fact I found out that this was her work space after I snapped the picture of the notorious Cisco 6921. She came up to me about a few minutes later asking if we met at Fenway. I felt somewhat flattered that someone could recognize me among thousands that come there.

As you can tell, sadly Lego is on the “dark side” of telephony…:(

I was only able to come because the indoor park is only open to adults if you have kids. On the third Wednesdays of every month, they open it to adults for only a couple of hours, despite them selling adult beverages and closing time is bedtime for a 10 year old. (Nine o’ clock.)

I had fun regardless and hope I run into these fine folks again next month. The neighborhood is a wonderful attraction with it being setup as an outdoor mall. Click below the phone to see more Lego related pictures of the workspace.

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POTD – Local Kohls

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In today’s Phone Of the Day I recently took this picture of a Mitel IP 5212 set (if memory serves me)  at the Bedford NH store. This Kohls has a few IP telsets and boatloads of analog sets all across the sales floor. There are no sets near the fitting rooms. This store was built within the last five years around the time where perhaps Kohls was in a position of like a dysfunctional marriage: Do I stand with my man? (i.e. sticking to Avaya.) Don’t forget in early 2010s there was a bunch of doubt whether if Avaya would continue in supporting an overrated brand of telephony equipment. There is probably many reasons why in newer stores (of which popped up in my area, as their stores came to my area around 2002 – of which the Norstar 7200s are still in use in those locations) and other reasons such as higher maintenance contracts if you go through Avaya directly and the change of the user interface. Continue reading →