Third party phones

[stephan.steiner]

I'm currently running a bunch of SPA9x2s, along with an SPA525 and some Siemens IP DECT devices.The SPA9x2 device are Spiura branded but still have some more miles in them (and it's not like the SPA5xx series is much different) - so I'm wondering if other SIP devices are supported (within the applicable RFCs of course) as well.. just like you can connect third party SIP devices to Cisco's bigger boxes (I'm not much into CUCM Express / UC500 but we're running those Siemens IP DECT devices on a couple of CUCMs for customers where WLAN phones aren't an option).

[mcasimirc63]

The UC300 currently only supports SPA300 and SPA500 series phones.  Stay tuned for more updates.

[stephan.steiner]

I know what the datasheet says - I'm more wondering whether the box rejects a REGISTER if the device type doesn't match (like Snom One now does since they took over pbxnsip) or if it's more like the SPA9000 which besides the broken REGISTER response basically allowed any devices to register and it was then a question of how many of the RFCs the third party phone supported.

[Alberto Montilla]

Hi Stephan;

PBX will reject the register.

Regards
Alberto

[FBGIT2011]

To confirm, the UC320w will only support the Cisco SPA300 and 500 series IP phones?

To consider this product as an alternative to our hosted PBX solution will require new phones.

Our Linksys SPA-942 IP phones will not work?  

[Alberto Montilla]

Hi Andrew;

You are right, only phones supported under UC320 are SPA300 and SPA500 phones.

Regards
Alberto

[stephan.steiner]

That is unfortunate. In the brave new SIP world we're regressing to the point where the badge on the phone decides if it can be used with a certain PBX or not. Imagine if your switch looked at the MAC of your computer and said... HP? Nah, I don't like them

And after all, the CUCM does support third party SIP phones (within the applicable RFCs) - as it should be. They realized that they simply cannot cover every use case. For the UC300 in particular we have a bunch of options missing: portable phones (and WLAN phones aren't for anyone.. IP DECT makes sense in a lot of environments so we'd need WLAN and IP DECT phones), cellphones with sip clientts, softphones in general.

[Alberto Montilla]

Hi Stephan;

Related to third party endpoints I would like to provide you some reasoning for the decision, I hope you find it at least interesting. The third party phone support is and is not related to SIP, but to the features set associated, its configuration and the support associated. Things like Key System Emulation, Shared FXO, shared extensions, parking, pickup, paging, corporate directory and more are all outside of SIP. Plain SIP just give you the possibility to register, make/receive calls, transfer, conference and forward. UC 300 is meant to deliver a good set of business call control features and key system emulation in addition to PBX. This is not possible without a good set of extensions over SIP.

Assuming you want just simple features, the next issue is on ease-of-configuration. Very difficult if you have to go and configure each device manually. Then, in addition to all these, there is no way to ensure feature consistency, i.e. features enabled on one phone (e.g. call pickup or park on SPA500) will work when the other party is a third party phone. How do you ensure the other party behaves properly to your messaging? (then how to support)?

In addition, would like to say that we  have roadmap options for softphones, mobile phone clients and DECT  endpoints implementation on UC320. It is not there yet but will come in  the next 12 months. Stay tuned for updates!

Regards
Alberto