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First VOIP Advice

Hello all,

I am  currently studying for a CCNA, but I  had a great interest in VoIP  technologies, and I would love to be able  to practise this if possible,  just for self learning and enjoyment. I  currently have a 1780 Cisco  router that states 'these slots are only for  voice interface cards',  albiet they are empty. This sparked my initial  curiosity. After reading  a lot of websites and even buying a Cisco  self-learning book, I still  am not sure where to start.

Basically,  what is the minimum hardware  requirements to get two Cisco VoIP  phones to work over a LAN?  Thats all...

I  have a voice  capable router (but no expansion card), I believe, but  apart from that I  am not sure where to start or what to do. Any advice  for hardware,  tutorials or even just 'get this, and then get this and  try this' type  of stuff would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers,

Adrian.

1 Reply 1

Jeff
Level 1
Level 1

Adrian,

I am in the same position as you.  I have been experimenting with Cisco VoIP for the past year or so and I have to say that Cisco offers a very vast array of VoIP solutions.  I am not too familiar with the 1780 router, but in order to get a Call Manager Express (CME) system up and running you need to make sure that your IOS version supports it (if you do a show ver from the command prompt or a show flash: you will see the name of the IOS package, if it says IPVOICE it should contain Call Manager Express, some IOS's that are ADVENTERPRISE also contain CME).  I am currently running two 1760-v routers with CME IOS's. The "V" after the model no. is a voice router w/ supports DSP modules which is used for transcoding between codecs.  If you plan on putting in a voice card or VIC in your router you probably would want to make sure that it supports DSP modules, that is if you plan on having conversations between attached FXS phones (analog phones) and IP phones.  I may be wrong on this, but I am pretty sure that routers that have a "V" after the model number it will natively support DSP modules.  Routers like the 2600 series can support DSP modules with an NM-2V card.


This is a great tutorial and will help you get your CME system off the ground in no time, it was very very helpful to me.
http://guides.idacomusa.com/Cisco/ConfiguringCiscoCME.pdf

Good Luck

-Jeff