So you’ve got your brand new Polycom Sound Station (sometimes known as a spider phone) and you’re ready to go. You just need to connect it to the outside world and get your conference started. To understand how it connects, the best thing to do is to simplify what you have, think of your new Polycom Sound Station 2 as a basic analogue telephone.
Essentially that’s exactly what it is, albeit with some very powerful microphones and speakers. However, for the purpose of understanding how to connect it, simply view it as an analogue phone
Will my Sound Station connect directly to a phone line?
Yes, it will plug directly into an analogue phone line, just like your line at home or your fax line at work. Plug it directly into the wall socket and away you go, it will work quite happily.
Can I connect my Polycom Sound Station to my business telephone system?
It’s more likely that you want to use your conference phone in the office, and that you have a business phone system there which you want to connect to. This is fine, you can run your Polycom Sound Station by connecting it as a telephone extension and dialling via your phone system. When you plug the unit into a wall socket, the socket must wire back to an analogue extension port on your phone system.
Pretty much all business phone systems will have the capability of connecting an analogue phone. If you have structured cabling (Category 5) this may need a socket patching to an analogue connection. If you’re not techy, and this seems complicated simply run this information past your IT contact or your telephone system maintainer. To them this will be very straight forward, and they’ll have you up and running very quickly.
We use Skype for Business; can I connect my Polycom Sound Station 2 to my PC?
You can’t use the Sound Station 2, you need a different version. Polycom have a range of compatible IP conference units that connect by USB. We recommend the following: The Polycom IP5000, the IP6000 and IP7000. If you have any questions relating to the Polycom range of conference units you can call us on 0800 644 0424, we’ll be happy to help you