VG224 vs. ATA186

[Paul McGurn]

I was wondering what folks prefer as far as equipment goes when connecting a not-tiny amount of analog devices to a Cisco IP environment.  We currently have about a dozen ATA186's spread across 3 server rooms, and while I understand the pain it'd take to centralize, one thing I could look at is one VG224 per server room.

Reason's to switch?

• The ATA186's aren't exactly the most stable devices, in our experience.  I'm having to power cycle at least one of them weekly, but not always the same ones.
• Port count vs. cluttter.  Having to put a bunch of these non-rack, non-square units somewhere is a challenge for both wiring neatness and space efficiency.
• Growth - The ATA186 only powers 2 analog devices.  This doesn't scale when you're using them for faxes, conference room phones (that aren't the 7937G), and other analog-only devices in a medium-sized company.

Looking to see if anyone would care to comment on their experience with the VG224 as a more robust platform for enabling analog devices.

[Chris Deren]

Vg248 have been EOL for some time now, and you should be using VG224 instead. VG224 is 24 port analog GW which you can defined with any protocol you want, i.e. SCCP/H323/SIP/MGCP and it simply runs Cisco IOS.

I would defeinitely get these instead of ATAs as they support wider range of applications/features/devices.

HTH,

Chris

[davebowen]

VG224 programs via IOS and not like the simple gui that the older model has.

[Chris Deren]

simple is relative, with IOS it's copy/paste. So I would consider it a lot simpler.

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[davebowen]

True.

I should have inferred the VG224 has the preferred IOS interface.

While the older VG has a simple GUI interface that doesnt give you the kind of control desired.

I certainly think the VG224 interface is as good as it gets.

[Paul McGurn]

Thanks for the responses guys.  Seems like there's a lot of positive concensus around the VG224 in regards to flexibility.  I'm placing a safe bet that the IOS-backed hardware is more stable/reliable from a day to day perspective than the ATA186's are, as well.  Now I just need to figure out how to justify more than one due to the fact that our main office is actually 3 office spaces separated from each other...

[rajuchandu87]

Even i am also planning for the same If anybody can post the configuration part on the VG224 IOS GW or CUCM 7.1.5 and GW 3945 (H.323). Thanks in Advance

[Gordon Ross]

VG224s are much easier to support than ATAs. So I'd bite the bullet and get some.

Saying that, I've got one colleague who swears at VG224s because they claim they're not very reliable under load.

GTG