Despite not getting an answer to my previous post I decided to go ahead and get a BX2000 as it seemed like a good migration route from PSTN to VOIP. However I have a number of issues!
Firstly, the call quality from the PSTN line (which when used with an analogue phone is totally clean with no background noise) is quite frankly atrocious. I have tried both variants of G.711, and also G.729 and G.726 and they all sound rubbish with muffled voices and horrible background mush. This is whether I am using a VOIP phone connected to the BX2000 or simply letting a call go to voicemail and listening to the resulting message. I cannot believe that anyone is actually using this device to run a small office - the call quality is just not acceptable. Is it any better for a pure VOIP call?
I have to say the user manual is little or no help. It is by far the worst Draytek manual I have ever used, and the VOIP section is pretty useless in helping you to set the BX2000 up. For example, I had to work out how to get the VOIP phone to make an outgoing call; this involved going through Dial Plan->Digit Map to establish a prefix number for outside calls which can then be mapped to the PSTN line, but this is not at all well explained or obvious. Anyone who reads it critically would have to admit that it is cryptic to the point of being obstructive in some areas.
One other thing that I cannot fathom is how to get music to play on hold, which is for some bizarre reason in the section for setting the SIP Proxy. The manual says "Check the box to enable the function of music on hold. Then choose the music file (from user prompts) to play in turn." But the pop-up menu alongside the first Play label just says None, and when you click on it this doesn't change. No user prompt appears as the manual suggests. This problem is also present for the Waiting Music which you apparently set separately for incoming calls. There is some confusing text about this but I think I have got this right.
Another final gripe for this post is that having succeeded in setting it so that the VOIP phone can initiate outgoing calls, when you dial a number from this phone you don't get any audible feedback that the call is connecting, just silence until well after the call starts ringing on the phone that has been called. Interestingly the background "mush" on the line starts as soon as the ringing tone starts to sound, so it is presumably a function of the digitisation of the analogue PSTN line.
I think this is enough for now but I have to say I am not impressed by this product so far. It seems unfinished, with a UI which is very obtuse in places and the manual is certainly very poor and could do with a wholesale re-write, ideally by a native English speaker!
