I would think that a single network connection will suffice unless you are running some really bandwidth intensive applications.

The old QoS scheduler in Windows XP and Windows 2000 provided the 2050 IP softphone the ability to preempt the other applications running on the desktop/laptop with respect to access of the NIC.

I would recommend you so some testing before embarking on trying to run a dual homed machine.

Good Luck!

The info that it doesnt use voice vlan was just what I needed!

The conclusion is that, in cases like ours – where the voice vlan and data vlan are separate, you must use a multi-homed host to use the i2050 (and possibly all nortel softphones)

For our test phone setup, I just installed the phone on a laptop with its wired port plugged into the vlan100 switchport, and let the laptop connect wirelessly to the data vlan. I was able to do late-night script testing from home while controlling the softphone via some remote desktop software. It worked great!

Thanks for your help!
k

This is probably a conversation best had over on the discussion forums;

http://forums.networkinfrastructure.info/nortel-ip-telephony/

There is no voice VLAN with the 2050 softphone, there is no DHCP string with the 2050 softphone. The 2050 IP softphone will utilize the IP address of the desktop/laptop.

Please post over on the discussion forums if you have additional questions.

Cheers!

When I thought removing my phone from inline fixed the issue, I removed the ‘swi acc vlan 100′ and the phone lost connection again.

So somehow it is not getting its voice vlan setting. The port configs are:
description Vlan100 test
switchport access vlan 100
switchport mode access
switchport voice vlan 100
speed 100
duplex full
priority-queue out
mls qos trust dscp
spanning-tree portfast
spanning-tree bpduguard enable

the DHCP strings are:
128: Nortel-i2004-A,..1.2:4100,1,5;..1.2:4100,1,5.
and
191: VLAN-A:100.

of course the s represent real numbers

These all work with the I200x’s that we use, Am I missing something, or is there something different about the softphones?

thx
k

Remember my mentioning that I had put my IP phone on the network line to verify the net settings? I FORGOT AND LEFT IT IN LINE with the PC running the softphone!

It didnt like that! I removed my phone and plugged straight to the switch and voila!

That doesn’t address my problems with the Win2K client as my phone was definitely NOT left inline with it, but maybe that relates to the nortel qos driver you have to install or something….

At least I know what the softphone is supposed to look like/do when it is connecting!

Its the little stupid things that get you!

thanks again…
k

Thanks for the reply. We DO have IP telephony already in place in our system/network and I have a good handle on working with the physical IP phones – creating TNs for them – etc. Which also means we have Signaling servers and MGCs, necessary networking, in place.

(as a matter of fact I verified the proper network line config for the PCs by plugging my own IP phone into the PC line and verifying it could acquire the switch and get a dial tone.)

It is specifically the softphones that I am not familiar with.

On a physical IP phone, it prompts you for the TN as it comes up: thus far on the softphone I’ve seen no such setting or prompt – of course since it is not finding the server I doubt that it would.

Also you can Force the Node ID – I also dont see a way to do this.

You can force Voice VLAN setting on the physical phone to eliminate any suspicion of DHCP issues

but I dont see any sign of those settings, or even a way to verify that they picked up the correct DHCP settings – beyond using the i2050 softphone diag to verify they are at least getting the correct server ip/port addresses

Finally, I dont know if there is additional configuration required on the PBX specifically for dealing with softphones, beyond the standard DN/TN config.

Thanks for the link to the docs, I will try to do some searching, but as you know – nortel docs are notorious for trying to find stuff in unless you know exactly what you’re looking for. It would be really helpful if you could point me in the right direction for those specific questions.

Thanks again!
k

There’s a lot of prerequisites that need to be in place before you can have any IP telephony including IP softphones.

Your questions and comments lead me to believe that you are not familiar with the CS1000. If that is the case I would highly recommend that you contact your voice reseller for support. In order to make a CS1000 (legacy Option61) IP capable you need either an ITG (Internet Telephony Gateway) card which is no longer supported or today you need a Signaling Server and associated Voice Gateway Media card(s).

With that hardware in place then you need to configure the CS1000 with all the necessary information and ultimately program the TN (the actual set).

This all assumes that you have a network capable of handling VoIP traffic and you have a QoS configured properly throughout.

You would need to refer to the CS1000 manuals no the 2050 manuals for information on how to configure the TN.

Here are all the manuals for the CS1000M;

http://support.avaya.com/css/Products/P0715/All_Documents

Good Luck!

I’ve read many of your posts on a wide variety of subjects and theyve been a great help! Thanks!

I hope you can help with a specific issue.

When we purchased our option61c, quite a while back, we also purchased a few 2050 softphone licenses with it, for investigation of it and how well it works.

I recently decided to try to get one set up and running as a handy test phone.

The version I happen to have is v1.4. I know that is old, but since its just in our R&D area, its fine for the current uses.

I’ve tried installing it on a win2k machine (including doing the windows qos install and the nortel qos service install), and on an XP machine.

In each case I have installed a nortel usb audio adaptor on the pc being tested.

I’ve run the configuration utility and set the switch type, – left server addr at DHCP – also tried manually setting the addr and port (4100), and tried forcing qos on and off.

The result in all cases is the ubiquitous ‘Server Unreachable’.

We have IP phones currently in use here (via dhcp) (the i200x series) and I have verified network settings for the PC nic lines I am working with by plugging my IP phone into the PCs network line, and it comes up just fine.

On our IP phones, of course, when you first plug them in, you point the phone to a specific TN as it comes up – as well as a specific node number.

I was presuming that I would get similar type prompts from the i2050 software when it started connecting.

Is there something I need to set up on the pbx side to make this work? How do I set the Node ID? How do I point the TN?

The manuals Ive seen all seem to start at the desktop and dont specify the pbx side config at all.

Any suggestions?

Thanx!

Now we discovered one more thing. Apart from softphone ip 2050, we tried to do calling direct from Dubai to Mumbai through ip phone.
In Dubai, we have CS 1000 Meridian system, we also use Nortel 1220 IP phone in Dubai.
In Mumbai, we have BCM 50 system and ip phone which is Nortel 1220 IP phone
In Mumbai we have internet 5 mbps lease line and in Dubai we have 100 mbps line so internet no choke up
What we observe is that from Dubai, when we use dialing code to dial Mumbai numbers (any number ) randomly, within 3 minutes, the call get disconnected.
However ,from Dubai, if we dial specific numbers in Mumbai which is call forwarded from our Dubai extension to Mumbai through PABX , it works fine
What could be the issue? We are at our wits end.
Also we do call forward from Mumbai office to Dubai office for certain numbers and that is fine
Pl assist
Thanks
Menon

You would need to verify (beyond just ping) that you the proper communications between those two end-points, that obviously includes the VPN that you are connected over.

If they can hear you that indicates that the Tx RTSP stream is working properly and the it’s the Rx RTSP stream that’s having an issue. You would need to perform a packet trace at the BCM50 to verify that the Rx RTSP stream is visible at that point in the network. If it is then you have a network issue somewhere. If the Rx RTSP stream is not there then you have a software bug in the BCM.

Good Luck!