Linksys by Cisco 8-Port Ip Telephony Gateway (Spa8000-G1)

I have been deploying cisco ATA-186 and ATA-188 units on our system for quite some time. We have roughly 300 analog and fax devices on our ShoreTel system that require a sip gateway. As you know, availability of the Cisco boxes is getting tight and the price of the used gear is now beyond reasonable, they just aren't worth it and they work no better than the Linksys branded stuff. I decided to experiment with the Linksys PAP2, 2-port units at first. I deployed 5 or 6 of them for a trial run and they performed flawlessly. I do have quite a few locations where multiple analog device ports are required in a more confined space like in the data centers or IDF closets. We considered the Cisco VG series, but at over 2K each plus support, we just laughed at them and bought these SPA8000's instead. I have to say, these units perform just as well as the SPA2 units and it doesn't make nearly the mess as having a truckload of the 2-port units in a huge pile along with all of their A/C adapters. If you have ever configured an ATA before, you can do this one without reading the manual... there are just a few settings for each port (Don't get intimidated with the hundreds of customizable settings, you will rarely ever need to change any of them). I would change one thing about the SPA8000 if I could... get rid of the A/C adapter and put the power supply internal so I can use a regular power cable. 208v support and some way to rack mount would be nice additions as well. I'd pay an extra 50 bucks each for just the internal power supply. Do manufacturers realize how badly we HATE A/C adapters? We are successfully using these units for voice, data, faxing and credit card terminals without any issues as long as you stick with G711. This is not a Linksys limitation though, that is true for SIP in general. If you try to do faxing via G729, just go ahead and get a hammer and smash all your fingers with it. You can inflict all the pain on yourself at once instead of dragging it on for months and months. I highly recommend this product if you need analog presence with more than 2 ports, I would buy this over a cisco VG even if I did have the money to burn. If you are only needed 2 ports, go with the Linksys PAP2 units, they work just as great and are like 60 bucks retail.

I purchased five of these for a critical telephone to analog phone satellite relay station. The system supports critical communications and the SPA8000 works excellent for this application. After locating the programming manuals on-line the installation went better. The only negative is the lack of documentation and little to no Cisco support. Functionally it works well. I will purchase additional units as this system grows.

I was very disenchanted with this product. It was incappable of hunting from L1, to L2..... we called tech support and spent 20 minutes trying to explain to the "tech" that we wanted a 2nd or 3rd or 4th, and so on to roll or hunt a second call path if mulltiple callers call in. He said that we have to have different numbers on each individual port. 20 minutes later he finally understood or delema and researched that issue. He came back with our software was 6 years old, even though there was only one release newer. He did o ahead and assist us in the upgrading of the unit: but; and this is a big but; the unit would not reboot. It round robin boot, reboot, continuesly, until he read somewhere that we needed to reflash with the upgrade software. After 3 times of doing that, he wanted to try it for a forth time; we said "oh Hell no". 3 hours and twenty minutes later we brought it back to the office to mess with it here. NOT TO IMPRESSED SO FAR.

Wouldn't get an IP address at first. Called tech support and they recommended a firmware update. That did the trick now gets an IP address. Only other issue is the fan.... It's super loud.

I am a fairly technical person that was just starting out with IP telephony. Our startup needed a phone system and didn't have any money to pay for it. So, based on another review here, I downloaded Trixbox CE(a free Open Source IP PBX based upon Asterisk) and installed it on a machine we had laying around. I was very impressed with Trixbox. It allowed me to do everything I needed it to do. I signed up with a SIP provider - [...] and was able to get a SIP based phone number with 3000 minutes for $[...] per month (no taxes). I tried a software based SIP phone and I was actually able to make call from my laptop out through the Trixbox. I was also able to receive them to my laptop through the Trixbox PBX. I then decided that I need to use some old phones that I had lying around to hook up to the Trixbox. This is where the SPA8000 came in. I connected 6 old analog phones lying around the office into the SPA8000 and then configured it to talk to the Trixbox. What do you know? Everything worked flawlessly and it wasn't a pain in to get everything working. So I took 6 old cheap analog phones that I had around the office, an old PC, and invested a little money into the SPA8000 and I have a complete PBX system. I will say that I am an extremely picky person and I was absolutely surprised by how good the sound quality was throughout the system. The key here is that for $[...] a month, I have up to 8 channels coming into our new office and the international rates are ridiculously low. IP telephony is the way to go.... I hate traditional phone companies.

The short answer is this product did exactly what it was designed to, connect 8 analog POTS lines to my asterisk phone server. The phone configuration is very complex for someone who is not a phone tech (I'm not), but can be figured out with the bit of work. The hardware is VERY well built, definitely built more in the lines of commercial hardware than consumer hardware. I was actually surprised at how much the system weighed. It also has a fan for forced cooling that runs continuously, which makes it more noisy than you would expect, but again, normal for commercial hardware. The only reason I did not give it 5 stars is the poor documentation. The system has a ton of options for each line as well as the router side of the hardware, but the printed documents barely mention the most important settings and completely ignore most of the phone settings. There is better documents online, but it is not easy finding the correct documents that have the information you need. They should have just printed out a better manual and included that in the box. Overall, I am happy with the product.

I needed a FXS gateway that would allow me to connect multiple fax devices for an application that does FoIP. I was told by the Cisco support sales engineer that this device would work for my application. However when I tried to configured the the device and after 3 hours with the Cisco support team, I concluded that it was over sold. It is possible that it does work as designed, but be sure this is not a gateway device. It does not provide energy (tones) on the FXS port as well. If you are looking for a Sip gateway device this is not it. I do want to say the vendor (Flytec Computers) that I purchase the device from, were very good at refunding my money and I will buy from them again.

Great box, works well. Very stable so far. Took only a few minutes to setup. Have not tried using for fax but plan to give it a go, they say 4 ports are setup for that.