With that done I launched the admin software. The phone system is listed by mac address and model #. I chose our system and pressed connect. There is another option to specify the IP as well. This opens up another screen and requires the needed info. I went the easy route, after all this needs to be simple enough to be installed by the end user. After pressing connect you get an “Are you sure this is your system?” type prompt. Agree and enter the default password of admin. Note this is case sensitive. It will ask you to change your password and log you in.

Setting up a phone was very easy. You connect it to the network and click phones on the menu. Choose add new phone. The phone will appear in a list of unassigned phones. Choose your phone and then choose assign user. This brings up a new screen. One of the cool things I noticed about this was I can assign the phone to a person, location, group, or Job Role. This will change the identifier (CID) of the phone. I chose location and put in Front Desk as this will be my Operator/Secretary phone. Choose next and it programs the phone and brings the phone up as its new extension.

All in all it is very easy! This may be a competitor to companies like the one I work for. If you have a small business customer who needs a phone system you can ship this to them and they can figure 99% of it out. I don’t see that as being a good solution as you want to build a relationship with the customer. I see easily see this system being sold at Wal-Mart and Best Buy. It has a basic user set with a few bells and whistles. It includes the vital services such as Voice mail and address book integration as well as cool features as dial by voice. If I want to call the front desk for example I press the blue “rp” button and say call “bob”. The system repeats back basically what you said and then connects the call.

I am going to play and will write more later.

Cheers!

The D-Link Response Point

I have noticed something that is glaringly missing from this kit. POE. All devices have power cords so keep that in mind when you install it. I would recommend a small UPS for each desk. Otherwise your phones go dead when the power is out. I think that the addition of POE would make this a much better kit as you would need fewer UPS units and fewer cords at the desktops. Moving on…

After looking at the system I am wondering how necessary the switch will be. The Router has an 8 port on it and should handle a small phone system fine. We shall see.

I am going to set the system with just the Router (Left), Phone System (right), and one Phone (center). I will also connect my laptop to the setup to run the CD that came with the system.

I am still very pleased with the exceedingly small size of this system!

To get the unit going I powered up the router for IP, the phone system, and then a phone. So far it is very plug and play. The phone, phone system, and my laptop pulled an IP with no issues. All of the devices came with a short cat 5 cable. I am a little concerned the length of these as they appear to be about 4 ft long. I have a hard time getting a 7 ft cable to be long enough on most installs. I would recommend purchasing a 7ft plus cable for each phone before you install this.

I was just handed a D-LINK DVX-2000MS Response Point phone system bundle to play with. (GOODY!) I started opening boxes and this is what I found: A D-link switch, a Business D-link router, 5 D-Link phones, an analog gateway, and the phone system.

To start with the phone system is very small. (4″X9″X8″ approx) It looks like a micro PC that has most of the connectors blocked off. USB, audio out, a 12v barrel connector, and a NIC are the only ports available. I can see that if limited space is an issue this will be a good option.

The switch (DES-1228) and router (DIR-130) are from D-Links business line. I do not have much experience with these but I am pleased they did not include the Best Buy consumer models as they are not all that great. It also had a wireless router (DIR-330) with it that I will not use in this test.

The phones (DPH-125MS) are small with few buttons. They have a basic LCD and use a menu system for some features. I am very happy to see hold, mute, and voicemail have physical buttons. I have dealt with soft buttons and such for those and that makes it a pain to use so good job there. It has a speaker phone as well. They are also nice looking to boot.

The Analog Gateway is something I am happy to see for several reasons.  First is expansion.  The Old system was what you see is what you get.  With the migration to gateway devices you can “stack” the units to add lines as you need them within reason.  The second reason is that you can have your analog gateways near the dmark which is generally speaking a hostile environment.  This leaves the system to be placed next to a managers desk or next to the server if you have one.  That way if you damage the gateway you can just buy a new one as opposed to having to replace the whole system.  Very nice!

Now we have the hardware listed I will start the setup but that is the next post.

Cheers!