All three phones were tested with Asterisk running under Trixbox 2.0, and used with a variety of trunks, from ATA (Analogue Telephone Adapter) bridges to the PSTN to pure SIP trunks served via BroadVoice. As with all VoIP phone tests, I tend to use my Cisco 7970 phone as the touchstone, since it's arguably the most advanced IP phone available on the market today.

There's still plenty of room to grow in this space, and as of yet, I haven't found the truly perfect VoIP phone. Given that VoIP roll-outs require a variety of phone types to meet needs throughout the enterprise, standardising on a single phone vendor is really the only way to go. It means less hassle, easier configuration, and smoother implementation. Collectively, these units show that Polycom is serious about VoIP and SIP telephony. The Polycom line has a little something for everyone, including lower-end handsets that I didn't test for this article. Especially in an Asterisk environment, Polycom phones are clear winners.

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