SPA504G, Single Line with 2 channels ?

[briangroper]

Hi forum

I'm testing a SPA504G.  Seems mostly working quite well, but small problem with 2 channels.

I have single voip line with 2 channels from voip provider.

I need to have both channels active using Ext 1 and Ext 2 buttons, so that conference calls can be used.

Registering these buttons as 2 separate "lines" with the sip provider is screwing with their other call features, especially the MW flag.

Is there a way to configure the handset for single line registration, with 2 active channels, and map each channel using Ext 1 and Ext 2 keys ?

TIA's for tips and clues.

[Patrick Born]

Hi Brian,

I don't fully understand what you mean by "channel". Can you please re-phrase your question?

Usually, a service provider will provide you with a SIP account with a user ID and credentials for your VoIP devices to register with. The SIP account can have one or more phone numbers associated with it. (also known as direct inward dial (DID) numbers).

Make sure you are using firmware version 7.4.8 for your testing.

Regards,

Patrick

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Use this reference document to locate SPA phone resources

[briangroper]

Hi Patrick

Yes, I'm using latest firmware.

2 channels means up to 2 concurrent calls for each registered device.

There is only 1 sip registration and single phone number that is used (shared?) between the multiple channels.

We already do this nicely with Siemens consumer-grade Gigaset systems.

My VOIP/SIP provider can supply many channels for a single sip registration.

2 channels is just their standard service. 

There's more details (especially last item) at

http://www.internode.on.net/support/faq/nodephone/getting_connected/

"The standard NodePhone service supports a maximum of two (2)  concurrent  calls for each registered device (inbound and/or outbound)."

Can I use a SPA504G for multiple channels ?

Hopefully Cisco simply has a different term for "channel", and I'm still learning the language.

TIA's

[Patrick Born]

Hi Brian,

Thanks for the explanation. Yes the SPA phones support multiple call appearances per line.

Take a look at the Voice tab > Phone tab > Miscellaneous Line Key Settings > Call Appearances Per Line: 

By default the SPA504G supports 2 call appearances per line, you could increase to 10 if your provider allowed it.

Also of interest to you will be the Line ID Mapping and Line Navigation parameters. Read more about them in the SPA500 Admin Guide.

Regards,

Patrick

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Use this reference document to locate SPA phone resources

[briangroper]

Patrick

Thanks for clues. 

It seems that my provider's "channels" might be the same as "appearances" for Cisco.

Unfortunately, I'm confused by the term "appearance" in the Cisco SPA500 Admin Manual.

Searching for "appearance" brings up many entries regarding "Share Call Appearance".

This seems to enable call sharing between different physcial handsets (aka extensions).

Could you confirm whether share call appearance is relevant/irrelevant to my situation ?

More TIA's

Edit.  Thanks for help above.

We're now testing (and learning how to use) multiple channels using a single Ext key, and the "Conf" softkey.

Seems the method described in original post was sub-optimal.

Time will reveal whether MW flag of provider's sip server will now work as intended. I'm confident of positive result.