Phones for Asterisk and single-pair old phone wiring?

[Ben Scott]

On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 1:16 PM, Kenny Lussier <klussier at gmail.com> wrote:
> You wouldn't necessarily lose these functions. Since they are all
> functions of the current PBX, they would continue to work.

  I'm thinking of inside calls between Norstar extensions and Asterisk
VoIP extensions.  (The whole point of this is, after all, to have both
kinds.)  The integration available there is poor at best.  The Norstar
doesn't really have many features for integrating it with external
systems.  (From what I know, most systems don't.)  It can do DIDs to
have inbound inside calls go direct to extensions, and has some basic
dial plan features that would serve to route calls to Asterisk
appropriately, and caller ID, but that's about it.

> So really, there isn't much difference to the end user.

  Um, sorry, there is.  Take something as basic as a BLF (Busy Lamp
Field -- indicators that show which lines/extensions are in use).
Asterisk and Norstar have no way of communicating extension status to
each other.  Group pickup?  Internal hunt groups?  Detailed status
information on the phone display (like extension numbers participating
in a conference)?  Real-time prompts in the LCD for things like ring
again (my phone rings when a called party becomes available)?

  None of those are huge.  Calls will still connect between point A
and point B.  It's the loss of detail features that I'm worried about,
and we all know what's in the details.  The perceived success of a
project depends hugely on the end-user experience, and if they find
things don't work at least as well as they used to, this project will
be seen as a step backwards.  I've heard that same complaint about
countless VoIP deployments, so this is one of my biggest concerns.

  All that said, one of your links did eventually lead eventually lead
me to <http://www.citel.com/Products/Portico.asp>.  That seems to be
exactly what I'm looking for, and more: A network-attached appliance
that will bridge Norstar digital sets to the world of IP.  ("And more"
because it even works with our existing sets!)  Score!  Now to try and
find out how well it works... :)

  I'm almost disenheartened by this find: Decisions are much simpler
to make when vendor lock-in doesn't permit any choices.  ;-)

-- Ben