By Doug Allen

Grandstream Networks, an IP voice and video telephony company known for low-cost, secure SIP-compliant products, has just introduced the latest addition to its SIP telephone line for small businesses, the GPX285. Like its other GPX solutions, the GXP285 is designed specifically for the small business, delivering high-quality audio with feature-rich VoIP capabilities at low cost: Grandstream is marketing the telephone through its worldwide channel base at a list price of $95, beginning next month.

The unit specs out as a single line SIP telephone with dual 10/100M Ethernet ports and a 128×32 graphical LCD supporting multiple languages, full duplex speakerphone with acoustic echo cancellation, 1 or 2 line appearances allowing up to 2 simultaneous calls, 3 XML-programmable soft keys, and a headset jack. Moreover, it fully integrates Power-over Ethernet (802.3af PoE) for redundancy, addressing a major concern of VoIP phone users.

In addition, the GXP285 delivers high-definition quality audio through its enhanced handset and speakerphone. And critical for small business customers, server redundancy and fail-over support are integrated, along with security protection (courtesy of SRTP and AES encryption of configuration files). On the feature side, the unit provides more traditional VoIP features such as hold, mute, transfer, forward, 3-way conference, off-hook auto dial, auto answer, click-to-dial, and downloadable ringtones.

The GXP285 offers small business and service-provider customers a next-generation, single-line SIP telephone with HD audio quality, rich telephony features, and a very attractive price point, said David Li, CEO of Grandstream Networks. A key benefit of the GXP285 is its integrated PoE capability that allows centralized power supply with backup.