The TA-824 bundle wasn't exactly the deal it seemed. You got the 308 box for a good price, but paid dearly for the expansion modules. My vendor is still sitting on 140+ of them so it might take awhile for the stock to be truly gone. For the sake of an argument, you can pick up Panasonic phones for a song on the internet, and the TAW-824 or the TDA-50 both perform fairly well with all the bells and whistles for about the same money.
I have been semi-seriously dabbling in IP phone systems for the last 2 years. I can get better phones, a basic box, and an upgrade path for about the same money. Both the Grandstream UCM-6204 or the Yeastar S-series gets me entry into the market and the inventory can reuse the materiel for a larger system. I kicked and screamed when I was dragged into that marketplace, but ya gotta admit, the phones have more sizzle (my fav being the GXP-2160 and the T-29) than an analog KXT-7736/37.
Retrofitting or recabling, not so much, but it's still not a bad choice for new installations.
Lucky for me, I'm still holding a couple of 824's, 848's, and about 10 phones. The annoying thing about the FCC decision is that not many smart people would consider an 824 for a single line application and, wait, there's a pickup dial feature for sl sets. But, with auto line select, a multi=line phone could be made to grab an outside line on pickup and now 911 isn't an issue. I'm wondering if I should dump my last TD-1232's?
Carl
