Re: Do Panasonic KX-61610's (phone system) die after 16 years?

["John Q. Public" <noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 22:43:38 -0600, Don Wiss <donwiss@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 22:15:14 -0500, Petem <petem001@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> if you buy 4 VOIP telephone (from 35$ to 250$ depend of the model),run
>> 4 cat
>> 5 cable to those phone,take an old PII computer and a line card (about
>> 20.00$) you have the same system then your panasonic system,and
>> more,not how
>> much would you pay for the replacement of your panasonic system?
>
> And home many hours of labor to pull it off? What if I value my time at
> $100/hour? I have more than four phones here. How much electricity would
> that old PII computer suck 24/7? And then I'd have to give up some space
> somewhere to put it. No thanks.
>
> Instead I've ordered an 824, the 308 upgrade (to get me back to the 6x16
> capability), two 7731s, and one 7736. This will give me seven proprietary
> phones. I don't need quite so many proprietary ones, but Panasonic gives
> their dealers 20% discounts when three phones are packaged with an 824.

The main problem with Asterisk is that you would be stunned by the
massive configurability of it all, and there'd be a bit of a
learning curve.

Throwing together FreePBX (a preloaded, ready-to-go Asterisk) on a
low end PC is pretty trivial.  If you want really low power, you can
even buy an external PSTN-to-VoIP gateway, and then use something
like a Soekris or other low power PC, and it is very likely that the
power utilization would be less than your Panasonic system by a good
bit.  Depending on how you decide to mount it, it could be bigger
than that Panasonic:

Panasonic (70 watts est., 11"x15" of plywood, 165 sq. inches)

- vs -

Grandstream GXW-4108 (8 FXO, 15 watts, 6.5"x9" of plywood, times
two for wiring space, 117 sq. inches)
Soekris 4501 (10 watt, 6"x8" of plywood, times two for wiring
space, 96 sq. inches).  Netgear FS116 switch (14 watt, 11.5"x4"
of plywood, times two for wiring space, 92 sq. inches).
Total (39 watts, 305 sq. inches)

Half the power, twice the space, but I assumed all wiring would
fit inside the Panasonic.  Further, it assumes that you don't need
a KX-TVS voice mail system or anything else like that.  And don't
forget that Panasonic likes to ding you for the add-ons.
Caller-ID?  Don't forget to buy those 3-line caller ID card addons.
DISA?  Fax detection?  Yet another card.

 From a labor point of view, wiring is wiring.  If you want to go
buy a FXS gateway, you can reuse your existing wiring.  Otherwise,
since VoIP uses  ethernet, any wiring you did could be trivially
recycled for other uses in the future - not even a jack switchout.
VoIP has no limit to the number of extensions, so you aren't
locked into that "x16" configuration, and you aren't limited to
having all phones within wiring reach of your PBX.  Now compare
your Panasonic, where the wiring you are doing is not necessarily
going to be forward compatible with a future phone system.

And if you don't like Asterisk?  Asterisk doesn't use "proprietary"
phones, so those generic VoIP phones are usable with other telephony
systems as well.

When we bought this house several years ago, I had intended to wire it
with a KX-TD1232, but a number of things were problematic.  I ended up
waiting and eventually got around to looking at Asterisk for business
PBX uses.  Once I started playing with it, I knew it was what we really
needed for home too.  Now our business calls transparently follow me to
the house if needed, my cell phone, both simultaneously, or any other
policy I can think up.  It is completely programmable, with built in
IVR support, dialplans, etc.

The main problem with Asterisk is that it is so tempting to do so much
with it.  I had purchased Cisco 7960's for the house, and now find that
all six lines are used.

One thing I had originally lameneted was the lack of a BLF (Busy Lamp
Field) implementation, but this is mostly a matter of choosing your
phones appropriately.  The Cisco's don't/won't do it, but others
(including the nice-looking and less expensive Grandstream 2000) do.

Going with VoIP leads to unexpected benefits.  I have some family who
travel frequently for several weeks at a time, and they commented
that they had a devil of a time retrieving their messages from their
answering machine - it expects you to control it with touch tones in
response to various beep codes.  I set them up with a Sipura SPA3000
that answers their phone and forwards it, over the Internet, to our
PBX, which records messages for them, and allows them to be retrieved
when they call our second line - based on the Caller-ID of their cell
phones!  Full voice prompting.  No more fumbling with a book of
Chinglish instructions or worrying about running out of tape.

Once you get over the idea of having a "mere PC" run your telephony
(and remember, that's exactly what a Panasonic PBX really is), you can
trade up and get some real flexibility in your telephony deployment.
I value my time at a lot more than a mere $100/hr, and I consider the
time I've invested in Asterisk to be time well spent.

The Panasonics are nice, tightly integrated units, but even Panasonic
refers to their phones as "DPITS"... they are "de pits" when it comes
to flexibility.  But seriously, DPITS says it all.

D igital - yes, similar to VoIP..  without the "anywhere" capabilities
P roprietary - locks you into the Panasonic realm..
I ntegrated - something of an advantage, it IS more tightly integrated
T elephone - same
S ystem - same

Anyways, if it is doing what you need, then great, but Panasonic and
other PBX manufacturers are losing business to VoIP solutions.
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