Wow, I'm surprized they didn't provide an MM225
I'm not sure why either. I vaguely recall seeing the MM225 while doing some research online for ISDN-enabled phone hardware. My guess is that the Navy tends to standardize their hardware. They've sole-sourced with Polycom for all of their VTC requirements, so they may have decided to use an existing Polycom agreement to provide the VSX 3000.
No, I can't say that I do know Paul Singleton.
Paul Singleton is probably the most widely known Deaf federal employee in the US Govt. His office is responsible for providing all DoD and over 64 federal civilian agencies with technology accommodations for deaf and hard of hearing federal employees. Most people I talk to know him or of him, so I was just a little surprised you didn't know him.
My real question is, why do you need an IP videophone? Is it hard for you to get through, to an interpreter? Do you want to call other IP videophone users?
I have a few reasons for wanting an IP videophone, as follows:
* Using FedVRS (which is the only VRS service that enables ISDN connectivity), I've experienced an overall 67% successful call rate average. I have no other VRS providers available to me if I can't get through to FedVRS for whatever reason. The FCC required interoperability last May between all VRS providers, but unfortunately, this doesn't apply to FedVRS as far as ISDN capabilities are concerned. Hearing people are guarranteed 99.9% dial-tone availability.
* I've received probably 5 calls through FedVRS from other hearing people since FedVRS access was made available over two months ago. One of them (my program office attorney) complained to me in an email that he tried "all day" to contact me through FedVRS without success and had requested a better phone number. It makes me wonder how many other people may have tried to contact me without success?
* I cannot contact my wife at home in case of an emergency since I have an IP-based videophone at home. Neither can I contact other Federal deaf employees who use IP videophones. This is not a limitation imposed on my hearing colleagues.
* As far as I can tell, the Polycom VSX 3000 does not permit a light signaller to be attached. I've tried using the microphone "in" feature with an RJ-11 jack adapter connected between a mic jack cable and a telephone signaller, no dice. This means if my back is turned away from the Polycom unit, there's the potential to miss phone calls.
* Lastly, IP videophones like the VP-100 and VP-200 have features that are "deaf-friendly" which are not available on the Polycom.
If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be grateful!
Thanks,
navyman