Posts tagged IP TELEPHONY

UNIStim Firmware Release 5.0 for IP Deskphones

1
February 26, 2011
by Michael McNamara in ,

Avaya has released UNIStim firmware 5.0 for their IP deskphones;

  • 0621C8A for the 2007 IP deskphone
  • 0623C8A, 0624C8A, 0625C8A, 0627C8A, 0626C8A for the 1110, 1120E, 1140E, 1150E and 1165E IP deskphones
  • 062AC8A for the 1200 series IP deskphones

This release of firmware adds support for the following features;

  • Support for wideband (G.722) codecs on 1120E, 1140E, 1150E, 1165E, 1220, and 1230 IP Deskphones.
  • Support for Avaya Notification Solution (ANS) and Avaya Push API which provides the ability to push text, graphics, and audio messages to 1100 Series, 1200 Series and the 2007 IP Deskphones.
  • Support for a Wireless Markup Language (WML) browser for 1140E, 1150E, and 1165E IP Deskphones.

Product Advisement for UNIStim 5.0 related to Zero Touch Provisioning:

For customers who have pre-configured the REG entries (which includes the MAC address, the TN, and Node) within the provisioning file to enable Zero Touch for the IP Deskphones, be advised that a problem can occur related to parsing of the REG entry that may result in the IP Deskphones not coming up as expected, and instead continuing to reboot when UNIStim 5.0 is loaded onto the units. The issue will impact IP Deskphones that have been pre-configured for Zero Touch and where the REG lines still exist in the REG entry. This is a known issue that will impact IP Deskphones that have a matching MAC address already pre-configured in the REG entry. This issue will be fully addressed in the upcoming UNIStim 5.1 maintenance release expected in March 2011, and customers may want to delay updating IP Deskphones and Call Servers until that time due to this issue.

In the interim, to avoid this issue the following workaround is recommended: Before loading UNIStim 5.0 onto the IP Deskphones, customers are advised to add a comma before the semi-colon of the REG entry. If UNIStim 5.0 is already loaded, and the issue exists (where the phones continue to reboot instead of coming up), the customer can then add a comma as specified above and the IP Deskphones will come up.

Example: reg= 0021e1ff59cb cs1k s1 3380 096 00 00 18,;

I also recently had a discussion with another telephony expert around the issues of running a PC at 100Mbps (connected to the IP phone) when the 1100 series IP phone is connected to the network via 1Gbps or vice-versa. Here’s the relevant blurb from the release notes that details the problem.

Throughput may be slow for large file transfers on conversions from GigE to 100Mbit (applies to the 1120E, 1140E, 1150E and 1165E IP Deskphones)

In networks in which a PC is connected to the IP Deskphone’s PC port and the PC’s NIC speed is 100Mbit but the network speed is at GigE, large file transfers to the PC can take quite a long time. This is an issue with large file transfers only. Due to the speed mismatch between the phone’s two ports the buffers in the phone can overflow resulting in retransmissions. Although the IP Deskphones support Ethernet flow control (802.3x), the support is only implemented on the phone’s PC port, not on the phone’s network port. Ethernet flow control is a mechanism were the IP Deskphone can request a brief “pause” from the transmitting Ethernet device if the IP Deskphone buffers are about to overflow.
Ethernet flow control cannot be implemented on the phone’s network port, since it impacts the phone’s voice quality. As a result, in environments were the network is GigE but the PC NIC is only 100Mbit, large file transfers from the network to the PC can take quite a long time. On the other hand, since Ethernet flow control is implemented on the phone’s PC port, in environments were the PC NIC is GigE but the network is only 100Mbits, large file transfers should be well managed by the phone’s Ethernet flow control mechanism.

You can find the release notes on Avaya’s website along with the actual firmware/software for the IP phones.

Cheers!

Where are all the Avaya technical configuration guides?

6
February 23, 2011
by Michael McNamara in

I get a lot of questions (actually two or three in just the past 20 posts on the forums) asking where people can find more technical information about a specific product or configuration concerning Avaya (formerly Nortel) data products such as the Ethernet Routing Switch or their telephony products and specifically the legacy Nortel IP phones.

Thankfully Avaya has done something that I truly applaud them for, something that Nortel always had issues with either allowing or executing (not completely sure which it was). What am I talking about you ask? Avaya allows Google to index their support website with all those juicy technical configuration guides. You only need to ask Google to show you the light;

http://www.google.com/search?q=technical%20configuration%20guide%20site%3Asupport.avaya.com&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&source=hp&channel=np

You can either enter the following query or you can click on the link above;

technical configuration guide site:support.avaya.com

So while Greg over at Etherealmind is complaining about Cisco’s website I’ve found my way around Avaya’s website thanks in no small part to Google. I’m not sure why Greg doesn’t just use Google himself?

Cheers!

ISC DHCP Configuration for Avaya IP Phones

1
February 17, 2011
by Michael McNamara in ,

This is an update to a fairly old post I made a few years back now providing an example dhcpd.conf configuration file for use in an Avaya (formerly Nortel) IP telephony environment. I was recently working on a few things and discovered that the Avaya IP phones ignore the next-server option within my dhcpd.conf file. A few tests and I quickly found that I needed to define the tftp-server-name option with the IP address of the TFTP server (see the global section of the dhcpd.conf file below).

If time allows I hope to post an update in the very near future covering the new Nortel-i2004-B option string. While working with the SIP 4.0 software release in the past few articles I did learn that the Avaya SIP IP phones can utilize a new DHCP vendor class, Nortel-SIP-Phone-A which can allow you a little flexibility when configuring them via DHCP and TFTP.

In the same file below I setup four DHCP scopes; one for 2111/2212/6020/6040 wireless handsets, one for i2002/i2004/1100/1200 series IP phones, one for 1100/1200 series IP phones running SIP and one for all other devices (laptops, desktops, etc). Just a quick note about the example below, you’ll notice that I have no pools in the 192.168.1.0/24 network. All the pools are in the 192.168.25.0/24 network.

#
# DHCP Server Configuration file.
#   see /usr/share/doc/dhcp*/dhcpd.conf.sample
#
# Sample dhcpd.conf file for Avaya (legacy Nortel) IP Phones
#
# Notes: example dhcpd.conf file to illustrate how to configure Avaya
# IP Phones with specific DHCP options for 2000/1100/1200 series IP
# Phones and the 2200/6100 series Wireless IP Phones.
#
# *** WARNING *** WARNING *** WARNING *** WARNING ** WARNING ***
#
# This is just an sample file with specific IP information. You'll
# need to customize this file to your specific IP address scheme
# before you can use it in your environment.
#
# *** WARNING *** WARNING *** WARNING *** WARNING ** WARNING ***
#

ddns-update-style none;
not authoritative;

option nortel-callserver code 128 = string;
option nortel-2245 code 151 = ip-address;
option tftp-server-name "192.168.1.20";

# Vendor Class for i2002/i2004/1120e/1140e/1150e Internet Telephones
class "Nortel-i2004-A" {
  match if substring (option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 14) = "Nortel-i2004-A";
    option nortel-callserver "Nortel-i2004-A,192.168.200.2:4100,1,5;192.168.200.2:4100,1,5.";
    option vendor-class-identifier "Nortel-i2004-A";
}

# Vendor Class for 2210/2211 Wireless Phones
class "Nortel-221x-A" {
  match if substring(option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 13) = "Nortel-221x-A";
    option nortel-callserver "Nortel-i2004-A,192.168.200.2:4100,1,5:192.168.200.2:4100,1,5.";
    option nortel-2245 192.168.99.10;
    option vendor-class-identifier "Nortel-221x-A";
}

# Vendor Class for Avaya 1100/1200 IP SIP Phones (SIP firmware loaded)
class "Nortel-SIP-Phone-A" {
  match if substring(option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 18) = "Nortel-SIP-Phone-A";
    option vendor-class-identifier "Nortel-SIP-Phone-A";
}

# Network Definition
shared-network "mynetwork" {
   subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
   option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
   option routers 192.168.1.1;
   option domain-name "home";
   option domain-name-servers 192.168.0.1;
   next-server 192.168.1.20;
   default-lease-time 28800;
   max-lease-time 86400;
   }
}

# Network Definition 192.168.25.0/24
shared-network "192-168-25-0" {
   subnet 192.168.25.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
   option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
   option routers 192.168.25.1;
   option domain-name "home";
   option domain-name-servers 192.168.1.1;
   next-server 192.168.1.20;
   default-lease-time 28800;
   max-lease-time 86400;

   # IP Address Pool for generic devices
   pool {
      range 192.168.25.50 192.168.25.100;
      deny members of "Nortel-i2004-A";
      deny members of "Nortel-221x-A";
      deny members of "Nortel-SIP-Phone-A";
   }

   # IP Address Pool for i2002/i2004/1120e/1140e/1150e
   pool {
      range 192.168.25.150 192.168.25.175;
      allow members of "Nortel-i2004-A";
      deny members of "Nortel-221x-A";
      deny members of "Nortel-SIP-Phone-A";
   }

   # IP Address Pool for 2210/2211
   pool {
      range 192.168.25.176 192.168.25.199;
      allow members of "Nortel-221x-A";
      deny members of "Nortel-i2004-A";
      deny members of "Nortel-SIP-Phone-A";
      }

   # IP Address Pool for Avaya 1100/1200 IP SIP Phones
   pool {
      range 192.168.25.200 192.168.25.224;
      allow members of "Nortel-SIP-Phone-A";
      deny members of "Nortel-i2004-A";
      deny members of "Nortel-221x-A";
      }

 }
}

Cheers!

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