Michael McNamara

technology, networking, virtualization and IP telephony

Nortel i2050 Softphone

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I’ve received a few comments about the Nortel i2050 Softphone and thought I would make a post about the software application.

The Nortel IP Software 2050 is a Windows-based application that runs on Windows Vista, Windows XP and Windows 2000 Professional. This software solution is designed to work with Nortel IP-based phone systems providing Voice Over IP (VoIP) services. The application has gone through quite a few revisions and upgrades over the past few years. This software based application works best with a dedicated USB based headset such as Nortel Mobile USB Headset.

I’ve used the i2050 on and off for the past two years. I found that version 1.x was prone to crashing especially after the laptop/desktop had been up for sometime and the application had been running for a few hours. Nortel just recently (within the last year) released version 2.x which is a giant leap forward in terms of stability.

When used on a fairly modern PC with a 100Mbps switched Ethernet network the call quality is indistinguishable from Nortel’s hardwired Internet Telephones (i2002/i2004/1120e/1140e/1150e). I should comment that it’s my general opinion that a Nortel Internet Telephone sounds clearer than a traditional digital or analog TDM set. The i2050 supports all the features that the hardwired Internet Telephones support including multiple line appearances, hold, transfer, conference, intercom, etc.

I have used the i2050 in a telecommuter role in conjunction with a branch to branch IPSec tunnel using a Nortel VPN 1100 Router (branch office) and a Nortel VPN 1740 Router (main office). I’ve had the opportunity to test that specific telecommuter solution over Verizon xDSL, Comcast Internet Cable and Verizon FiOS. All three mediums worked fine, however, I did need to be conscious of what I was doing on the laptop/desktop to avoid any call quality issues on the i2050.

In July of 2006 Nortel and Microsoft announced that they would be entering into an alliance to develop unified communications solutions. This has left a few of us wondering about the future of the i2050 softphone since it looks like it might be directly competing with Microsoft Office Communications Server (formerly Microsoft Live Communications Server). Obviously the OCS client will have quite a few more features (presence information, file transfer, instant messaging as well as voice and voice communications) than the i2050 but it won’t be able to support the wide array of voice features available in the i2050.

In summary I really like the Nortel i2050 phone and believe it is a worthwhile business tool. I would caution anyone that is looking to deploy a large number to make sure they do their homework and perform adequate testing to ensure that the i2050 software will work fine on their desktop image and with whatever software applications are required.

Cheers!

Verizon’s FiOS TV

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I’ve been a Verizon FiOS Internet customer for almost two years now and have enjoyed the service. I had been a Comcast Cable Modem customer prior to the Verizon FiOS Internet installation but had grown frustrated with the large amount of packet loss, frequent disconnects and the poor bandwidth/throughput.

The time came today to cut the last ties with Comcast. The Verizon technician and myself had everything installed and cabled within 60 minutes. I should explain that my house is only eight years old and was cabled with RG-6 to every room in the house. We also replaced the original D-Link Wireless eXtreme G router with a Verizon Actiontec MI424WR router (pictured to the right). I had heard of some horror stories with the Actiontec MI424WR router and anyone using AT&T’s Call Vantage VoIP service. It just happens that I’m an AT&T CV customer and a happy one at that. Thankfully though it looks like Verizon and Actiontec have worked out the problems that were affecting the MGCP protocol that AT&T uses.

Once the technician had registered the Motorola set top boxes with the Verzion backend systems everything came right up. I went with the following equipment;

  • (2) Motorola QIP6200 HD
  • (1) Motorola QIP6416 HD DVR
  • (1) Motorola QIP2500 SD

I have three HD TVs in the house and a few SD TVs as well. The QIP6416 HD DVR was placed in the family room attached to a Sony KV-30HS420 26″ Widescreen HD CRT (this beast is almost 200lbs). One of the QIP6200s was placed in the basement attached to a Hitachi 51″ 51SWX20B HD Projection TV. The second QIP6200 was attached to a Samsung 19″ LNT1953H HD LCD. The QIP2500 was connected to an old RCA TV.

It looks like I’ll be saving about 25% over what I was paying Comcast.

I’m happy to recommend Verizon’s FiOS service to anyone that might be so lucky to have FiOS available in their area. The picture quality is awesome and the price is right too!

Cheers!

Update: February 23, 2008

I’ve had Verizon’s FiOS TV for almost a month now. The entire family including myself are generally very pleased with the service. I still need to refer to the channel guide in order to find a specific channel or station because there are just so many channels. I’ve observed a few occasions where the program data contained in the guide was wrong but that’s to be expected from time to time. I was disappointed when I set the DVR to record Lost and it recorded 30 minutes of Jerry Seinfeld along with the first 30 minutes of Lost.

I would agree with those folks that call the Verizon FiOS Interactive Guide very “busy”. There is a lot going on and it’s sometimes difficult to focus and read through the content with it being so busy.

On another note I’ve only had one issue with the Verizon Actiontec MI424WR router. It seems from time to time that the router is unable to resolve DNS requests. If I statically configure my PC to use the Verizon DNS servers directly I don’t have any issues.

Cheers!

Update: May 2, 2008

I jut recently received a letter from Verizon informing me about a change in Verizon FiOS TV that may impact my service.

Over the next year, Verizon will continue to improve the Verizon FiOS TV experience by transitioning all analog FiOS TV channels to a 100% digital format. In addition to extending the quality of digital to all TVs in your home, this change will enable Verizon to bring you even more of the great HD and special interest content you’ve come to expect from FiOS TV. Customers subscribing to Verizon FiOS TV will experience this transition to an all-digital service beginning in June. Shortly after this transition, you’ll see even more great content from Verizon.

It seems that Verizon will be providing FREE equipment to all current subscribers that still have analog TVs connected in their house.

This should be very interesting period as the looming all-digital conversion gets closer.

Cheers!

ISC DHCP Server (Nortel VoIP)

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I’ve received quite few messages from folks trying to setup and configure the ISC DHCP server that often comes bundled with all the major Linux distributions for Nortel Internet Telephony. Nortel has several “Technical Configuration Guides” that outline how to configure Microsoft’s DHCP Server but I don’t believe they ever discuss the ISC DHCP server.

I will admit that I really don’t use the ISC DHCP server these days. We’ve been using Lucent’s VitalQIP IP Management software to manage our internal BOOTP/DHCP/DNS/DDNS needs for the past 10 years.

However, since there was so much interest I decided to setup a lab (at home) with a i2002 phone and a server running CentOS v5.0. I installed dhcp-3.0.5-7.el5 via YUM and came up with a sample dhcpd.conf file that anyone should be able to modify to meet their specific needs.

#
# DHCP Server Configuration file.
#   see /usr/share/doc/dhcp*/dhcpd.conf.sample
#
# Sample dhcpd.conf file for Nortel Internet Telephony
#
# Notes: example dhcpd.conf file to illustrate how to configure Nortel
# Internet Telephone specific DHCP options for i2002/i2004 Internet
# Telephones and 2210/2211 Wireless 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;

# 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";
next-server 192.168.0.10;
}

# 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 192.168.200.25;
option vendor-class-identifier "Nortel-221x-A";
next-server 192.168.0.10;
}

# Network Definition
shared-network "mynetwork" {
 subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
 option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
 option routers 192.168.0.1;
 option domain-name "acme.org";
 option domain-name-servers 192.168.0.1;
 default-lease-time 28800;
 max-lease-time 86400;

   # IP Address Pool for generic devices
   pool {
      range 192.168.0.50 192.168.0.100;
      deny members of "Nortel-i2004-A";
      deny members of "Nortel-221x-A";
   }

   # IP Address Pool for i2002/i2004/1120e/1140e/1150e
   pool {
      range 192.168.0.150 192.168.0.175;
      allow members of "Nortel-i2004-A";
      deny members of "Nortel-221x-A";
   }

   # IP Address Pool for 2210/2211
   pool {
      range 192.168.0.176 192.168.0.199;
      deny members of "Nortel-i2004-A";
      allow members of "Nortel-221x-A";
      }
 }
}

In the example above I setup two DHCP scopes; one for the standard hardwired Nortel Internet Telephones (Nortel-i2004-A) and another for the Nortel Wireless Phones (Nortel-221x-A). Hopefully this example should be fairly easy to follow just remember to edit all the site specific IP information.

Cheers!

Nortel Wireless Phones (VoWLAN)

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A few folks have asked me to comment on the Nortel Wireless Phones (VoWLAN). I currently have ~ 100 Nortel Wireless 2211 Phones deployed across six locations. One site has ~ 60 phones deployed across a very large hospital campus. You should know that the Nortel Wireless 2200 Series phones are OEM’d from Spectralink. Spectralink makes some really great wireless products and Nortel has chosen a good partner in their endeavor. I would honestly have to say that the product works well and I’m generally impressed by it. I also have ~ 10 Nortel Wireless 2210 Phones but we found these phones did not have as good a signal reception/strength as the 2211s nor did they hold up to the abuse of a health care environment well.

You’ll need a Nortel Succession Call Server (along with a Succession Signaling Server and Voice Gateway Media Card) configured for “IP Line” before you’ll be able to deploy any wireless phones. If you already have any of the Internet Telephones deployed then you have already have “IP Line”. Once you have your Call Server connected to the network you just need to deploy the Nortel WLAN IP Telephony Manager 2245 (Wireless Gateway). The 2245 wireless gateway converts the Spectralink Voice Priority (SVP) used by the phones to UNIStim/H.323 used by the backend Succession equipment. Of course you’ll need a wireless network(802.11b) in place to carry the traffic. We use Motorola’s WS5000 and WS5100 Wireless LAN Switches. We’re also in the process of evaluating the RFS7000 from Motorola.

Note: we’ve currently identified an issue with the WS5100 v3.x that causes the Nortel Wireless phones to randomly watchdog and reboot themselves. We’ve also identified this same problem on the RFS7000 v1.x. We are currently only providing VoWLAN services on Motorola Wireless LAN switches running v2.1.3 software. Motorola and Nortel are aware of the issue and are working towards a solution.

The Nortel 2245 wireless gateway will literally proxy all communications between the phones at the Succession backend equipment. This requires that the 2245 assign a proxy/secondary IP address for every wireless phone (this is done in the configuration of the 2245). From the wireless network standpoint the wireless phones will have an IP address issued by the DHCP server, but the 2245 will replace that IP address with a second IP address it will use to communicate with the backend Succession environment. This is so when the Succession backend tries to signal the phone it will send the traffic back to the 2245 wireless gateway which will then transcode the signal/data and send it the actual IP address of the wireless phone. The Nortel 2245 wireless gateway also works to provide QoS for the wireless voice traffic.

Nortel has just recently release the 6120 and 6140 Wireless Phones which support 802.11a/b/g wireless networks. I’ll be evaluating those in the coming months to see how they fair against the current products.

Technical Stuff
The Nortel 2210/2211 Wireless Phones can be configured in DHCP with the vendor class of “Nortel-221x-A”. They will accept the same DHCP option code of “128” with the same format as the i2002/i2004/1120e/1140e/1150e Internet Telephone. You’ll also need to pass DHCP option 151 (IP address of the 2245 server). Software upgrades are performed over TFTP using DHCP option 66 (IP address of TFTP server).

Hopefully that’s enough to give you the basics.

Cheers!

Home Desktop Upgrade (Part 3)

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It would seem that just like everyone else out there I have the same problems and woes.

I powered on my rig last Saturday morning only to get a SMART warning from my Epox Nforce4 Ultra motherboard.

SATA1 hard disk failure imminent; backup data and replace disk immediately.

I wondered if the report was correct. Well sure enough it became painfully evident that there was something wrong. When I went to check the System Log from Windows XP I found quite a few disk errors which all but confirmed the earlier report. I did some quick research and decided to take this opportunity to step-up from a 7,200 RPM drive to 10,000 RPM drive. With the HP Proliant servers we have at work the hard drives (SCSI, SATA, SAS) go up to 15,000 RPM. I chose the Western Digital Raptor X WD1500AHFD 150GB 10,000 RPM from NewEgg.com of course. (Image courtesy of NewEgg.com)

Let me just tell everyone that the performance boost is very noticeable. I will admit that I had to re-install Windows XP so that is probably also playing into the equation, but the system and GUI are much more responsive than before. I would quantify it at between 15% and 20% increase in performance. The Raptor X is only a SATA (1.5Gbps) while my two previous SATA drives were (3.0Gbps) but that doesn’t seem to really matter. The drive has a clear top to it so you can see the actual head and disk platter, just be careful not to push/lean on it.

Cheers!

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