Cisco 7940

Hello all,

Has any one tried using a Cisco 7940 with a Sipgate account? If i was to buy a Cisco 7940 with SIP firmware installed on it is it easy to configure it to your Sipgate account? Also would i have to open any ports on my fire-wall?

Well any help would be much appreciated.

Cisco phones should work just fine on Sipgate, provided you have a latish version of the SIP firmware installed.

The provisos are that Ciscos are a pain to configure and don't perform well enough to justify the premium.

You will have to forward the usual ports to the phone's IP address (5060 and 8500-8510 are good and can be set in the configuration file)

NB Please don't double post

Thanks rgower,

That information seems to be all good and sorry about the double post, i realize after doing it that it would be suited to the general forum.

Any way thanks and sorry again.


J

rgower :

The provisos are that Ciscos are a pain to configure and don't perform well enough to justify the premium. t[/i]

Are you saying they don't justify the expensive tag price for what you get?

But it will be ok on the Sipgate system?


Thanks j

Cisco are designed to use sccp AKA Skinny. Thats what they work best on, There is SIP firmware but it has issues. Its also worth bearing in mind that you officialy do need a licence to use the set, even though most users dont.
If you want one then go ahead but there are many SIP handsets out there and many will support more features that the Cisco will. Dont forget Cisco even own a SIP handset company, Sipura/Linksys .

Ian

You might want to read this rather long story (and there is info about setup there).

http://www.voipuser.org/forum_topic_14622_0_asc_15.html

Have a look at the voip phone reviews on this site. An alternative is to use and ATA with a regular handset (can be cordless) and handle PSTN calls as well.

Hi Ian,

Thanks for the reply, I thought you only needed a license if you were using the set with there Call Manager system? The reason i was after a Cisco phone was that i was under the impression that they were industry standard? I just don't have the money and time to set up my own Voip server. So i though sipgate might be the way?


Thanks for your time.

There is nothing wrong with the quality or performance. They are great business class system phones. It is just that almost everybody has caught up.

If you only want to set up a phone that works and not fiddle with TFTP servers, compiled configuration files and the like, I would strongly recommend you look at Snom or Aastra and save yourself £100 in buying, let alone the license and support costs.

Hi If you havent the time or money then look at sipgates site and see what teh recomend and support. and get one of those.
Most of the cheaper Cisco sets you will see are either referb or Grey market. Cisco licencing os a minefield even Cisco dealers dont understand it !

If you like the Look of them get a Linksys SPA set. Otherwise look at Aastra Snom or even Polycom. £ for £ and feature for feature they all will be cheaper.

Ian

jpcisco :

I thought you only needed a license if you were using the set with there Call Manager system?

It Depends(TM). There's two SKUs for the 7940, one with a license, one without [for use as a hardware replacement in case of failure]. As others have mentioned, Cisco licensing is a bit of minefield.

Quote:

The reason i was after a Cisco phone was that i was under the impression that they were industry standard?

That's an odd reason to buy a phone, to say the least, especially if it's for domestic use.

Quote:

I just don't have the money and time to set up my own Voip server. So i though sipgate might be the way?

But a 7940 could well cost *more* than a server to connect it to! As for the cost of time, it took me about two days to get mine working with Asterisk, but it's been reliable since then and the audio quality is excellent.

If the phone is for normal domestic use then you are probably better off using an ATA and a regular or cordless phone. This can be really quite inexpensive (as low as 30 UK pounds). You can then use any good voip provider (including possibly voipuser) for your calls. Using a computer to run Asterisk means running the computer 24 hrs/day consuming much more power than an ATA.

Hi,


I have a Cisco 7940 and have just spent a little time getting the beast to work with sipgate.

I now have 2 sipgate accounts attached to line 1 & 2 of the phone, I am not sure its setup perfect 'yet' but it does work.

There could well be better ways to go if you are buying new phones but I had this one gifted to me and was not going to let it go to waste.

Hope this helps

Ian