[Asterisk-Users] Cisco 7970G VOIP phones

[Tracy R Reed]

On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 05:07:33PM -0500, Bob Willock spake thusly:
> I just bought a couple of these Cisco 7970G phones and it seems that they
> require a SIP image binary file to load when the phone boots and this file

Cisco phones are hugely overrated. I have deployed a number of them and I
have decided to switch to Polycom. Flashing them is a PITA. Especially if
you get old ones. The phones always come with SCCP. Then you have to pay a
bunch of money (on top of the already expensive phones) to get a SIP
license.  Managing hundreds of SIP*.cnf files is a huge pain too, I have
put them into a database and generate them as needed.

Hell, the power supplies for these things alone cost $35! Oh, and make
SURE you get a real Cisco power supply when you buy your phone. I found
out the hard way. I had been getting the power cubes for $10. They were
listed as the same part number as the Cisco power cube. Then I saw real
Cisco power supplies and noticed they looked different and found the price
to be $35. Now I know why several of my phones do not work properly! I
swapped in Cisco power supplies and they work better. Not Cisco's fault
but another thing to look out for.

Then you find that your phone has an older version of SCCP which won't
retrieve the new SIP images with long filenames. So you upgrade to the
most recent short filename SIP image and find that it won't take a
standard SIPDefault.conf file because it is too big so you provide a very
minimal SIPDefault.conf and finally upgrade to the latest SIP firmware.
Now you can configure and use the phone. My first few 7960's were used. DO
NOT buy used 7960's! They usually aren't that much cheaper (none of the
ones I found anyway)

Cisco doesn't support Asterisk, open source, or open standards. Don't use
Cisco phones!

-- 
Tracy Reed    http://copilotcom.com 
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