 ZyXel Prestige 2000W VoIP Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz Cordless Phone home electronics. |
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ZyXel Prestige 2000W VoIP Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz Cordless Phone
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List Price: $299.00
Features
• IEEE 802.11b wireless standard; 2.4 GHz signal
• Site Survey; 64/128-bit WEP encryption
• Caller ID/call waiting compatible, display and dial
• Redial, hold; speaker volume control
• Headset compatible; 2-year warranty |
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ZyXel Prestige 2000W VoIP Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz Cordless Phone Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
Solid Proof of Concept
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Being one of the first Wi-Fi VoIP (SIP) phones on the market, ZyXEL Prestige 2000W is a solid proof of concept that is deemed by many to see explosive growth. With this unit, ZyXEL seems to be targeting two markets - a cordless phone for corporate SIP environments and residential broadband VoIP services (like Vonage). The unit gets 3 stars for actually working in one deployment scenario, but lacking many required features.
We have received several units from ZyXEL in October to investigate a deployment scenario with Asterisk PBX as a SIP server. The phone picked up a signal of our internal 802.11b/g wireless network with no problems. However, the initial attempt to register with Asterisk server was unsuccessful. Upgrading firmware to version 'f' solved the registration problem and now we could successfully move on to evalute phone's functionality.
Positive impressions:
1. Reception of Wi-Fi signal is good and is on par with other wireless devices (we compared to notebooks with WiFi cards).
2. Sound quality is very good and is comparable to your average cellphone.
3. Battery life is decent and will handle several hours of talktime. Standby mode is not as effective as with your modern cellphone, therefore the phone has to be charged every night.
4. Unit is fairly compact and lightweight (about the size of an older Nokia cellphone).
Unfortunateluly, this is where the positive impressions end. To give ZyXEL some credit, core technology seems be in good shape and the unit lacks any serious drawbacks. However, many important features one would expect in a cordless communication device are underimplemented or not implemented at all:
1. Phone looks and feels old, like one of the cellphones from the 90's. Screen is tiny and only has four lines.
2. Handsfree - both speakerphone and headset ports exist, but are not functional.
3. Battery compartment is very hard to open. Not that one should have to take out the battery that often, but this is the only way to reboot the phone when it occasionally locks up.
4. Only one incoming line is implemented.
5. Phone registers to a SIP server only upon bootup. Therefore, if the connection to the server is lost during normal operation, the phone will have to be rebooted.
6. Hold, transfer, and conference buttons are not implemented. As is the MWI (Message Waiting Indicator).
7. Wireless security is underimplemented. On paper, WEP up to 128 bits is possible, in reality that means you will have to punch in the keys manually (use the web interface for that) and quality of sound will deteriorate. WEP keys are easy to break anyways, so that leaves you with MAC Address filtering - wait, that's easy to spoof also. So do not bother yourself with security on this phone.
8. You have to know your SSID to access the wireless AP. No autodiscovery and no ability to store several SSIDs and to connect to whichever one is found first.
9. The lists for missed and dialed calls exist, but are out of order (at least chronological one). Plus, no details are offered.
10. Ringtones are godawful and cannot be changed.
In summary:
1. Corporate clients will be turned off by the lack of multiple lines, transfer and hold functionality, and lack of security.
2. Service providers, like Vonage, seem to prefer analog adapters to end devices that talk native VoIP protocols. In the case of Vonage, one may be able use Prestige 2000W on their network using credentials issued for the SoftPhone service. But given the extra charge for the service as well as the premium price of Prestige 2000W itself, the economics are against such scenario. It is much more economical for residential customer to purchase an analog or digital cordless phone in 900Mhz or 5.8Ghz spectrum and use it through VoIP provider's telephone adapter.
Unless you have an extra $250 laying around and like your technology raw, patience will be rewarded. New and improved WiFi SIP Phones are starting to show up. For example, Hitachi Cable's IP-5000 looks more modern and supports advanced security features like WPA and EAP-TLS (there are reports, however, of poor firmware design and incompatibility). Cisco 7920 seems to be dominant in the large corporate sector and may capture small and medium-business markets if they finally release SIP firmware and work on lowering the $500+ price-tag.
Motorola is releasing a CN620, which as a hybrid GSM/WiFi SIP phone for the corporate market.
There is a lot of development in this area and kudos to ZyXEL for braving the turbulent waters. Hopefully, they can improve on hardware design, add more firmware features and turn the ugly duckling that Prestige 2000W is into a beatiful swan.
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