Toshiba Phone System

Can you use Cisco IP phones in a normal home office environment?

I am looking to set up my home office and interested in getting a Cisco IP phone (like the Cisco 7940G IP Phone) to use on sipgate (SIP protocol). Is it am simple as buying the Cisco phone over the net (thinking of buying this one from ebuyer: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/97297 ) , hooking up to my cable broadband router and configuring with sipgate, and away I go .... or do I have to buy anything special like expensive licenses, expensive power adapters, etc. I am pretty new to all this so advice with more experienced people within the world of IP telephony would be greatly appreciated (along with any recommnedations for a good multi SIP account IP phone). Thanks

Public Comments

1. I would suggest a normal IP phone instead of high priced CISCO phone. Some phone available in market are easy to configure and you can use it any where (just need to key in IP, subnet mask and gateway, and probably DNS servers).. just find out if using IP phones the way you want to in your country is legal or not..
2. Polycom makes a very affordable SIP enabled phone out of the box. Don't get me wrong because Cisco makes a great product as well. Cisco may or may not be SIP enabled out of the box. Cisco phones by default run on a protocol called SCCP(skinny). This is completely different then SIP. In order to make a Cisco phone a SIP phone you must load the SIP image onto the phone. This is not easily accomplished for the novice. I personally like the Polycom soundpoint IP 320 phone. It is SIP enabled right out of the box and is very easy to use. I have both a polycom 320 and a cisco 7960 running in my home office. I am unsure what you mean when you say multi SIP account IP phone. These phones are typically configured using a commercial IP soft switch like Cisco Call Manager or Digium Asterisk. If you go to sipgates website they have an online store you can purchase Grandstream phones from...good luck.