atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX Cisco Telephones and Systems Cisco UC500

OK, I'll bite. It sounds very interesting. I do have a few questions though:

Any annual license fees?

Will it work with POTS lines or are we limited to SIP trunks like so many other "easy" systems?

Does it require that the customer's site be registered directly with Cisco?

Do we have to drag out a laptop to perform basic programming, like button appearances or ringing?

Can regular un-managed switched hubs be used or can anything be used, and if so, will Cisco throw the blame on the fact that their switches aren't being used when something goes wrong?

Can it integrate with other (existing) voice mail systems?

How about networking with other systems?

Are the phones at least somewhat presentable in appearance? Most look like a cell phone that got run over by a car if you know what I mean.

Most importantly, what are the system's capacities?

I am interested, but curious for sure. Any additional information you would be willing to share about your experience will be greatly appreciated.

GREAT questions!!!!

I'll chime in here. I have been selling and supporting Cisco's Call Manager Express for about a year and a half, which is the IOS based VOIP product. The UC500 is a new appliance based on that software, with some new tools to manage it, and tighter integration with some other new SMB products (switches, wireless APs/controller).

There are no annual license fees. Cisco sells a service contract (SmartNet) that entitles you to software upgrades and provides you with specific hardware replacement timeframes in the event of failure. Otherwise, you just get a 1 year limited warranty on the hardware.

There are several different models that support varying numbers of users - 8, 16, 32 and 48. They include from 4-12 FXO ports (or 2-6 BRI), 4 FXS ports, and on the 48 user model, an integrated T1 interface is available. They also have one VIC slot. Each box has 8 10/100 PoE Ethernet ports built in, 1 10/100 "Uplink" port, and 1 routed 10/100 port. The 8 and 16 user models have a wireless access point option available. They all support SIP or H.323 trunks.

There are no interactions between Cisco and a customer's network once it is installed. Cisco does have various network monitoring platforms that CAN monitor key metrics of one of these systems, but they do not run offer those "managed services" directly.

Configuration is performed via the IOS command line, a web interface or a Windows program called "Cisco Configuration Assistant". The IOS command line is the only way to configure most of the features beyond basic calling. This should change with future releases of CCA.

You can use any Ethernet infrastructure you want. But like with any VOIP network design, it needs to be properly planned out. If you stick with Cisco switches, QOS configuration is more simple than 3rd party managed switches. Voice and Data are completely segregated in separate VLANs (with Voice VLAN automatically learned) and QOS markings from IP phones are automatically trusted. Cisco is pushing their "Catalyst Express 520" series switches along with the UC520, which are available in 8 and 24 port PoE models and a 24 port non PoE GB model.

In any case, you don't need to use Cisco switches and Cisco will still support you if you don't. I think it's all a matter of choosing the right company (Cisco partner) to work with when implementing one of these systems.

It has an onboard voicemail system (Unity Express). Making it integrate with another VM system via IP would be fairly easy, not sure about connecting to other systems. If it's just a matter of an analog line and DTMF, it should be capable.

As I mentioned earlier, it supports H.323 and SIP trunking. "Networking" between different systems uses H.323 by default with Cisco IOS based platforms. We have done a few multi-site installs with H.323 trunks which have worked out quite well.

I think the phones themselves are very presentable. Cisco uses the same IP phones across all of their product lines. They make look cell phone-ish to some, probably due to the higher resolution screens. They are definitely different from other brands. Every time we demo them, we get comments on them looking "futuristic". Maybe not what you guys are looking for in a phone

This system also supports IP routing (but no routing protocols), firewall features, VPN, and most features that are available in Cisco's routers.

I'd be happy to answer any other questions about this thing.. hopefully you guys won't tear me apart for being so Cisco centric. I don't think this system is for everyone, but it has its place.

Thanks very much for the information. That helped a lot.

we got a sales demo of the system last week, I was impressed with some of the features it does have but dissapointed in a few things as well...
some good points
-Multi DN
-DSS/BLF
-paging through phones speakers
-programmable buttons
-line appearance
-8 pots or 12 channel pri

some down falls were

-NO hands free answer back on intercom calls, the person you are calling has to get to the phone and answer it.
-GUI Is limited, to get into any detailed programming you have to learn the command line
-voice mail is very limited, ports are not dynamic, you have to assign ports as either auto attendant port or voice mail.
you have to have a phone on the system to have a voice mail box
Hopefully it can integrate with a third party vm/auto attendant, but our sales rep wasnt sure of that.
-external ipts have to be on a VPN


Ive always liked the look of the cisco phones, the color display is real nice and is touch screen, dont think many smb customers would buy it, but it will definitly help close the deal,

you do have to register your customers with cisco this can be good, for one it blocks competition from other local guys from taking your proposal and droping the price by 5 dollars and you lose the deal ...


these are just some things that came up in our sales demo, we didnt want to beat up our rep to much, plus he was just a "sales rep" not an engineer.
Once we get our office demo system in, ill disect the thing with some real world scenarios ...

Fisrt one I can think of: I cant tell you how many of our small customers have 2 companys running out of the same office on the same system.

-call comes in for company A it has to play greeting A, call comes in for company B it has to play greeting B,
-caller for company A or B press 0 it rings same operator, but they have to know how to answer for proper company
- caller for company A "customer svc" rings x100 x101 x102 and takes messages on general box 500 for company A but copys message to x100vm
-caller for company B "customer svc" rings x100 x103 x104 and takes messages on general box 501 for company B but copys message to x100vm as well
-when caller for company A presses one touch opt 2 goes directly to a mailbox to take a message
-when customer for company b presses one touch opt 2 call gets calll fowarded externaly to another phone number

-etc.. etc..

with our current product we program all this on the fly for our customers in about an hour or so on site and test and adjust as needed...


so far I like the Product but I wont know untill I get our demo system in and disect it my self...

Keep us posted telecom1. This might be Cisco's first hardware that will qualify as "telephony"

Please I don't want to sound like a no it all, but you can configure the UC520/CME for auto-answer intercom. I have personally done it. Here is the Cisco documentation to do so.

https://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/vo...figuration/guide/cmeinter.html#wp1011632

As far as 3rd party Voice Mail integration here is a config to interface to an Octel Voice Mail. CUE uses SIP integration, the choices for that are endless. You could also use H323 integration, Cisco has a Stonevoice integration document. Sorry I cant post pics....

Analog Voice Mail
You can integrate Cisco CME with analog systems to provide voice mail services, as shown in Figure 11-5. In general, these systems connect to the Cisco CME via Foreign Exchange Station (FXS) analog phone interfaces. Each port is configured as a normal plain old telephone service (POTS) dial peer in Cisco CME.


Figure 11-5. Cisco CME with Analog Voice Mail


Cisco CME interacts with the analog voice mail system via inband dual-tone multifrequency (DTMF) tones. All call routing and MWI information exchanged between Cisco CME and the voice mail system also occurs via DTMF tones.

When integrated with Cisco CME, an analog voice mail system provides the following:

Direct access to voice mail

CFNA or CFB to a personal greeting

MWI

Many types of analog voice mail systems are available. The Octel system from Avaya and the Reception system from Active Voice, LLC are two of the more popular models. The following sections discuss Cisco CME integration with these systems.

Octel
Integrating the Octel voice mail system with Cisco CME requires configuration on both systems. The configuration sample in Example 11-8 shows how to configure the CME.

Example 11-8. Cisco CME Configuration for Octel Analog Integration
router#show running-config
call application voice bator flash:app-h450-transfer.2.0.0.9.tcl
call application voice bator language 1 en
call application voice bator set-location en 0 flash:/prompts
!
voice-port 1/0/0
caller-id enable
!
voice-port 1/0/1
caller-id enable
!
dial-peer voice 5000 pots
application bator
destination-pattern 5000.....
port 1/0/0
!
telephony-service
voicemail 5000
transfer-system full-consult
!
vm-integration
pattern direct 2 CGN
pattern ext-to-ext no-answer 5 CGN * FDN
pattern ext-to-ext busy 7 CGN * FDN
pattern trunk-to-ext no-answer 5 CGN * FDN
pattern trunk-to-ext busy 7 CGN * FDN
!
ephone-dn 1
number 1000
call-forward busy 5000
call-forward noan 5000 timeout 5
application bator
no huntstop
!
ephone-dn 2
number 1001
call-forward busy 5000
call-forward noan 5000 timeout 5
application bator
!
ephone-dn 100
number 3000*....*
mwi on
!
ephone-dn 101
number 3001*....*
mwi off


The Toolkit Command Language (TCL) application (called bator in the preceding configuration) is used to support a hookflash operation on the FXS ports. FXS port 1/0/0 is used for voice mail access, so the POTS dial peer points to this port. Port 1/0/1 is used for MWI operation.

The series of vm-integration commands specifies the DTMF digit strings to be generated to the analog voice mail system to control feature operation, such as selecting which greeting (external or internal, or busy or no answer) to play to the caller. The MWI DNs have asterisk delimiters surrounding the wildcards that match the extension number for which MWI must be turned on or off.

Note the following restrictions when integrating an Octel system with Cisco CME:

One FXS port must be dedicated for MWI operation.

The Octel system must have analog ports and must be configured for analog DTMF integration. Digital and Simplified Message Desk Interface (SMDI) integration with CME is not supported.

The Octel system does not distinguish between extension-to-extension and trunk-to-extension transfers. Thus, you must configure the DTMF patterns for these transfers with the same values on the Cisco CME system.

The MWI ephone-dn must use the . wildcard rather than the T wildcard to specify the exact extension length. Also, you must use an asterisk before and after configuring the called party ID (for example, number 3000*....*).

Active Voice Reception
The Reception system from Active Voice, LLC is another popular voice mail system. To allow calls to be forwarded to the Reception system, you must configure Cisco CME with four different DTMF patterns for the following four possible call flows:

Extension-to-extension no answer

Extension-to-extension busy

Extension-to-trunk no answer

Extension-to-trunk busy

When the Reception system receives the DTMF pattern, it plays the corresponding voice mail prompt.

Example 11-9 shows how to configure Cisco CME to work with the Reception voice mail system.

Example 11-9. Cisco CME Configuration for Reception Analog Integration
router#show running-config
voice-port 1/0/0
caller-id enable
!
voice-port 1/0/1
caller-id enable
!
dial-peer voice 5000 pots
application bator
destination-pattern 6800.....
port 1/0/0
!
telephony-service
voicemail 6800
!
vm-integration
pattern direct 2 CGN *
pattern ext-to-ext no-answer 5 FDN * CGN *
pattern ext-to-ext busy 7 FDN * CGN *
pattern trunk-to-ext no-answer 4 FDN * CGN *
pattern trunk-to-ext busy 6 FDN * CGN *
!
phone-dn 2
number 3002
call-forward busy 6800
call-forward noan 6800 timeout 10
!
ephone-dn 25
number A1.....*
mwi on
!
ephone-dn 26
number A2.....*
mwi off