Looking for some suggestions as I'm all out of ideas.

Customer currently has a Partner system in his home, with voice mail and a door phone, about 10 extensions. He would like to replace it with something that doesn't have keysets that look like something in an office, and they must be white. All the usual features: hold, MOH, intercom, transfer, VM, etc., and must be able to control the gate. Replacing the current keysets with the Euro keysets wasn't acceptable. So I'm looking for any ideas from the board here. I lean toward a Samsung system with iDCS keysets as the newer keysets look like something from a science fiction movie to me. But I plan to put together a sheet of keysets that work on systems that support the requirements and see if anything works for him.

First time I've had to pitch a system based more on style than function and price. In reality there is nothing wrong with what he has except it looks wrong.

Thanks!

Take a look @ Nec DSX.

nec dsx

availible in white , nice looking

I see Ken beat me to it

We put Panasonics in homes, mostly because of their cordless phones with cell sites which can pretty much ensure them perfect cordless phone coverage throughout their house if cell sites are placed right.

They can integrate with gates, I'm sure any system can, we put alot of doorkings in with them, the gate can have a seperate ring tone.

Their phones do come in white. If you're not familiar with programming a Panasonic it could be a challenge. We put in Panasonic TDA's but you have to be certified, if your not certified the Panasonic taw848 would be the one.

KX-T7633/36's or kx-t7667 can go on a TDA system.
KX-T7731/36's go on the TAW848 system.

The voice mail is a seperate unit, kx-tva50.

It is hard to beet a Panasonic for a home system

I don't know about the 10 cordless sets. But as far as coverage...the nec dsx's new dect cordless phones and repeaters should be fine.

Forgot about the cordless, he wanted at least two of those.

I've installed Panasonic in a few residences with gates and all that, NEC is an unknown to me but a new system under my belt is always a plus. Added to the list.

Thanks so far! I'm thinking the customer would be happier if the keysets looked more like WE 500s or even 302s (did they ever come in white?), the living room looks like a museum. Since this is an appearance driven bid I really have no idea where it's going to go. If I thought I could stuff an 18D into a WE 2500 I'd be working on it.

That prerequisite alone is gonna be tough.

Put in a system with SLT phones that have speed dial buttons.

for that matter keep the partner and use SLTs

there are some decent looking 202 and 302 modern knock offs out there with TT that you could use and add a MW light to

or if money isnt that be big a deal you could by a couple restored and painted antiques

What about the X-Blue system with those wild 'Flame' phones. And the pink breast cancer phones. Just a suggestion. John C.

I sell both the nec dsx and the samsung idcs among others. I have taken the idcs and dsx phones in to let the customer choose as I can do just about the same thing with each system, and lately every single customer falls in love with the nec phones which are feature rich! good luck!

How about a nice retro 1A2 system. Hold, transfer, Intercom MOH, voicemail - all available. And how about those sets!

You might have to rewire though......

Sorry. I couldn't control myself.

Sam

Norstar CICS, with t7208 platinum (pearl white) phones.

We had this exact same question maybe a year and a half ago and I don't think anything has changed. There's a reason multi-line phones look the way they do and if your residential customer want's to think they look and work like office phones it's because that's the way they have to be to work.

As was mentioned then and now- you have the option to use single line residential phones with a Parther system but the system features are difficult to utilize. That may or may not be a big issue depending on how much of a "power user" the customer is.

Certainly if you can find a system that has phones to their liking replace the Partner, but in my experience such an animal doesn't exist.

-Hal

We're on the same page, Hal. They want CID, so the display isn't going away. They want the same features as you'd find on an office system so programmable buttons are probably required. They want voice mail so some indicator is required.

I've given them a list of keysets to look at, some I have to show them if it gets that far, but most look pretty much the same to me. I've suggested that they can use standard phones in certain areas to match the decor if that will help. They have the same (although much expanded, maxed-out) system at the office where I've had to add a couple phones to the AUX ports of other extensions so are somewhat familiar with the concept of flash features.

We'll see how it goes.

Thanks, Sam. The cabling exercise would give me nightmares.

Thanks again for all the responses.

Hi,

I thought I'd revive this thread as I'm interested in the systems mentioned here, but as an end user with little telephony knowledge I'm still unsure about many things.

First, some context. I live in Chile but work for a US business and spend 1-3 hours per day on the phone. We're from Europe where we have friends and family. We're Currently using Vonage (which provides us with US and French phone numbers) and Skype on the discontinued Philips VOIP 841 system with 3 cordless handsets. We're also using a Chilean phone company but only for local calls. We bought a 4,000 sq ft house that we're in the process of renovating so we have the opportunity to redo things to serve our residential and home office needs. I've already planned to wire the whole house with cat6 Ethernet cable for data purposes.

Now, our main requirements for the phone system:

- Is future proof and will be able to work with an SIP provider.

- Handles local (Chilean) POTS line.

- Includes an intercom (we have four floors), handles door ring (with its own ring tone).

- Supports cordless phones.

- Caller ID, distinctive rings, last number redial.

- External call forwarding. If someone rings the door bell and we're away, I'd like to get it on my cell phone. For security reasons (relatively high burglary rate where I live) I don't want people to know when there's no one home.

- Internal call transfer between handsets.

- PC-based admin. I'm a PC guy and would love to administrate my phone system like I do with my routers and network attached storage.

- Less technically daunting and time-consuming than setting up a dedicated PC with Asterisk. I'd like something that "feels" more like an appliance, yet can be administered.

- Total hardware cost (system + 3 or 4 handsets and door box) hopefully below $1,200 (excluding cabling and setup, which I hope I can use the local guy I talked to for).

- I don't care too much about voicemail because Google Voice takes care of it for me (well at least for US calls, but those are the ones that matter).

- Conferencing nice to have, not a must have.

- Reliable and well-maintained. I don't want junk that doesn't see any firmware upgrade after it's shipped (Philips, I'm looking at you).

I've talked with a local installer but his default answer (through someone else before talking with me) was Nitsuko 308... not exactly cutting edge!

This thread tipped me about the NEC DSX-40 but I wanted to clarify a few things:

- It looks like VOIP support has been added recently with a firmware upgrade, but I'd need to buy an addon card as well, right? Will this let me use any SIP provider (I'm currently using Teliax on my Nokia smartphone), or am I confusing what the DTX-40 can do with a full-fledged PBX? I don't trust that Vonage will be around forever (besides they're proprietary and a bit expensive) while Skype and its hardware partners have dropped the ball on dual-use residential phones (I thought a hybrid DECT/VOIP phone was a genius idea but apparently Skype didn't - and again Skype is proprietary - don't want to be entirely dependent on either company in the long run).

- I'd like to confirm I understood the brochure [*] right about handsets. You can use (up to 8) IP phones and they can come from different brands right? What about regular analog phones, you can use up to two, correct?
[*] https://www.necdsx.com/docs/files/brochures/1093062_rev2_11.pdf

- If I buy DTX phones (or other IP phones for that matter), they will work with cat6 cable, right? Does it matter whether the cables are terminated with T568A or T568B termination? With RJ11 adapters for our analog phones, we wouldn't even have to wire the house with RJ11 cable, correct?

- What's the range of the DECT cordless units and at what range is it advised to start using repeaters?

I've looked at the Panasonic KX-TA824 and TAW848 too but they don't seem to support VOIP, do they? Earlier in the thread people also mentioned the Samsung iDCS/OfficeServ 100, it looks close to the DSX-40 in terms of feature, anything major to tell them apart? Did anyone look at Talkswitch?

Sorry if this message is overly long and betrays extreme phone noobishness, but I'm out of my element outside of the IT/internet world. Thanks for any help.

Look at the Nec UX5000.

Nec UX5000 for SOHO, isn't that overkill? Couldn't find the price by googling around, which is usually a sign that if I have to ask, I can't afford it.

I'm still researching options and ran into the Jazinga Asterisk appliance. Over my budget ($1,100 for the device alone) but it makes Asterisk more of a realistic option for me (can't afford having to learn and setup Asterisk from scratch).

Take a look at IPitomy.

Look at the Panasonic TDA50g or larger system. Supports VOIP phones and sip trunks. Best cordless system in the business. (IMHO) Does all you spec. And Panasonic has the only cordless phones that receive All Page and Voice Announce Intercom.
Forget about DSX for home w/ cordless. I like the system and sell them but the cordless phones have NO access to a call log. This is really DUMB. Your out at the pool and the phone rings. You miss the call and you can't see who called without going inside to a hard keyset. We have removed 2 from houses that were sold by a security company for this reason. Tech support says there is no plans to address this. There is also no access to any kind of Directory, extension or speed dial from the cordless.
So, basically, you have a high dollar cordless with no features.
The DSX does have a better privacy release feature, it's a no brainer.


:banana: :banana: :db: :db:

Thanks KLD and brokeda. I looked at IPtomy but it was another brand where pricing information is unavailable publicly. I know what they're trying to do for their reseller network but in this day and age it just drives me crazy.

KT-TD50G seems nice and quite close to the DSX-40. Thanks for the specific feedback on their cordless, you're right, I'd be pissed off to pay $200+ for a cordless phone with no call log! We do have a pool so I can relate to your use case

Now I need to sort out whether I like more the products from brands that come from the VOIP world (a la Jazinga) or hybrid systems such as those discussed in this thread (with roots in the key phone system world if I'm getting the genealogy right). Seems they're merging in terms of feature set, but the devil is in the details.