I’ve got two old US designed VOIP phones at home (recovered from work as they are now obsolete even though only purchased in 2008; and aren’t even that good in operational use as telephones.
They do have a pretty display you can use for checking if other circuits are seized, ringing or free – I am also using them in an experimental setup for DC power conversion in emergencies (the alarm lamp panel is part of) because they are power hogs for what they do (750 mA for a telephone FFS!) and I need something to load the converter with…
The first generations of firmware are full with flaws so I had to reflash them at least once to get basic functions to work. They can apparently do some sort of encrypt but its the low grade stuff; its not 100% clear if the exchange software can decrypt it and is fucking pointless anyway when they are replacing a non-encrypted analogue telephone circuit and no one has an expectation of total privacy on a telephone anyway.
To get the firmware i had to electronically sign this official declaration to President Obama that I would not export the software or telephone to China.
On the bottom of the phone with the MAC address is a sticker saying “MADE IN CHINA”.
These days I buy the phones from German or Chinese companies. They have not just moved on from eating Americans lunch, but now supply their own (as when they did eat the US food they most likely spent the rest of the afternoon in the WC….)
