[Asterisk-Users] ip phones and intercom/paging

[John Todd]

At 3:26 PM +0200 8/9/03, Siggi Langauf wrote:
>On Fri, 8 Aug 2003, cwitte wrote:
>
>>  There was a thread a few months ago that tossed around some ideas for
>>  using a cisco phone for intercom or paging.  I don't have any ip
>>  phones, and wondered if anyone had any luck getting intercom or paging
>>  to work on the cisco units.
>
>The Ciscos should be able to do this via a XML Service using the RTPTx:
>and RTPRx: URI schemes. The tricky part is just pushing the RTPRx to the
>listening phone.
>
>XML service specifications are here:
>http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps556/products_administration_guide09186a008018e234.html
>
>Cheers,
>	Siggi
>

I don't think this is possible, from my understanding of the Cisco 
firmware using SIP images.  While it may be possible to initiate 
receipt of an RTP stream from an XML command, how do you get the 
Cisco to execute the XML command to begin with, without having the 
user push keys to start up the process?  Caution: to not believe the 
Cisco manuals are correct when they say that the SIP O/S on the phone 
runs a web server.  They do not.  The only way that I have discovered 
the Cisco 79xx phones can download a URL from a remote server are via 
either user interaction (pressing a sequence of keys) or by putting 
together a really UGLY XML page that "refreshes" every few seconds. 
But even this suffers from the problem of: "How does the first page 
get requested?"

I'd be happy to be proven wrong in my assertion that intercom and 
paging is impossible with Cisco SIP phones.  Please send code.  :) 
Now, if all your comments are about SCCP phones, can you send along 
the SCCP driver for Asterisk so the rest of us can play?


PS: If one could initiate XML requests remotely, perhaps a better way 
to do intercom/paging would be to use the "Play" command, and (if 
possible) use a pipe on the server side to connect to a live audio 
stream.  (sigh) If only I could control the phones from the server...

JT