Telephone systems come in all shapes and sizes
From on-premises systems, cloud hosted and hybrid. They all ultimately do the same thing – enable your users to make and receive calls to the outside world and to each other. They all have similar feature sets, functionality and user experience. These days they all use the same VoIP protocols (SIP) and interact with your data network in the same manner. All good so far… But, when it comes to what handsets you can use on it, you’ll find some limitations.
A lot of manufacturers will prioritise their own handsets over others. They want to tie you in to using their hardware for a number of reasons. There’s a financial aspect to it, if you’re buying their handsets you’re giving them your money and boosting their profits. Nothing wrong with that, it’s the reason they are in business after all. But, more importantly, it makes you as a customer more “sticky”. The purchasing of handsets is a costly business, particularly across a large estate of users. Even if you work the costs into a lease or bundle of some kind, they still need to be paid for. It’s this cost that most customers don’t want to endure too often, so it makes sense to stick with the same system for a long period.
Third party licensing
In the past (before VoIP and SIP) most digital handsets were specific to a manufacturer, but with the standardisation of SIP it makes interoperability between manufacturers much easier. To overcome this, and to keep an element of stickiness, some manufacturers decided to incorporate licensing restrictions into their platforms. If you want to use a different manufacturers device on that system you need to buy a “third party device” license in addition to the normal user license. In some cases they even tied down the firmware on the handset so that it would only work correctly on one of their systems, thus stopping customers from changing phone systems without changing handsets.
Seeing Stars
A particular example of where this might be a problem is when you want to use specific devices for a specific purpose. Polycom have been one of the world leaders in audio conferencing solutions for a long time. Their iconic “star phone”, as many people call it, has been the staple device for many meeting rooms, board rooms and conference rooms around the world. To use one of these would require an expensive “third party” license on some systems.
It’s an understandable behaviour, they are just trying to protect their customer base and future of their business. But it’s not too great from a customer perspective. It makes the cost of change higher and decreases the benefits of an open market for competitive pricing.
Litenet’s platform is different.
We are “handset agnostic”. This means that almost any SIP handset can be used on our platform with nothing more than a standard user license. No expensive third party licenses. This gives a customer a few benefits:
- You can keep your existing SIP handsets and migrate them to our platform*
- You can choose your own handsets based on aesthetics, preference or functionality
- You can integrate existing conferencing solutions from the outset
- No additional licensing costs
- You can utilise PC based softphones easily
Of course, we have our own range of handsets which are highly functional, competitively priced and aesthetically pleasing. But, we don’t tie you into using them. In fact, if you ever choose to leave our platform you can use them elsewhere. We don’t tie them down. We believe in freedom of choice and providing the right solutions for our customers. If a particular handset suits your needs then we won’t stop you from using it.
There’s a whole host of VoIP handset manufacturers out there. The likes of Yealink, Grandstream, Fanvil, Gigaset, Polycom and LG are just a few. Litenet can source all of these from our range of distributors to save you the time and expense. Our own range of handsets is outlined below. Get in touch if you want to talk about VoIP telephone systems and what Litenet can do for you. Email info@litenetuk.com or call on 01908 794 794
*Some handsets may be locked down by the manufacturer or supplier. Let us know what model of handsets you have, and the current platform, and we can assess whether they will work with our system.
