Issue TOC Print full article Print this page Download as PDF E-Mail this URL Discuss this article Flame the author     In this article Introduction It's All Good Just Managing Polycom SoundPoint IP 600 Mitel Networks Corp. 5055 SIP Phone 2.0 Siemens optiPoint 400 standard SIP 2.2 Zultys Technologies ZIP 4x4 Snom Technology Snom200 VoIP phone ipDialog SipTone How We Tested SIP and NAT: Not So Perfect Together Web Links Report Card

Zultys tied with Mitel and Siemens for second place, but if you need encryption, the ZIP 4x4 is your only choice. It's capable of encrypting the audio stream when used with another Zultys phone.

The 4x4 sports 15 lighted feature keys, four of which are devoted to call appearances. None of the buttons on the Zultys phone are user-programmable, but we could make a number of them serve dual purposes through the use of a color-coded function key that acted as a shift key. The phone lies flat, but the LCD screen, which displays three lines of 20 characters each, can be tilted.

Zultys, like ipDialog and Snom, appears to be committed to SIP; the company offers SIP-based PBXs--the MX 1200 and the smaller MX 250--and uses SIP as the signaling protocol for all its products. Zultys' phone has some unique provisioning options, but they require that the phones be used with a Zultys PBX. For example, it's possible to create configuration files on the MX (which also functions as a TFTP server) by reading in each phone's MAC address with a bar-code reader. The company also claims that it can do a SIP-compatible "push" install of new software using a Zultys PBX. This means that you could schedule to reboot the phones, for instance, at 3 a.m., without end-user involvement.

The 4x4 was one of the more expensive phones tested, coming in at $400 retail. For that price, though, you get five switched Ethernet 10/100 ports, including the port used to connect the phone to the network. The phone was also the only one to come with its own headset.

However, the 4x4 is the only phone lacking a Web interface, something Zultys says it will add by year's end, along with support for the G.729 codec. This meant that we had to make configuration changes on the phone itself or edit configuration files.