Merging the old and new - VoIP style...

Here's one of those - it just makes sense type of products - PBX phones (actually they're called stations) are relatively expensive (when compared to a consumer phone), but they are complete throw aways when moving to VoIP stations (which are even more expensive than their PBX counter parts). To be fair, Nortel, Avaya, NEC, etc. have "front-end" units to their VoIP PBXs that allow for older digital stations (and in some cases analog stations) to work - as long as the Nortel PBX to Station solution. This is probably a good way for companies to get the cost savings benefits of VoIP, without the expense of switching all the stations at once.

BTW, from my experience, VoIP stations cost between $300 and $700 each, standard digital stations are between $100 to $300 and analog phones can cost as little as $20.

Old phones with new PBXes
It's not just the software folks who are making noise about how expensive new desk phones are. Citel's got a way to preserve a lot of unamortized investment in phone sets. It's Portico Telephone VoIP Adapter is a box that lets existing PBX phones work with IP PBXes. Rather than putting an ATA at every phone, Citel's product sits in the wiring closet, and passes new IP-based functions through to existing phones. The company said it works with more than 100 phone types made in the last 10 years, including Avaya, Ericsson, NEC, Nortel, Panasonic, and Toshiba. [Source: FierceVoIP @ www.fiercevoip.com ]

For more about Citel:
- check out this press release from Citel

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