CatalystTech

VoIP Assessments are an essential step to a successful VoIP implementation. It identifies potential network issues early reducing the costs of project overruns and post-production troubleshooting.

Catalyst Services has created three different offers to fit your project and budget. Each option offers a different level of engineering involvement.  The Catalyst technical support team encourages you to include this first step for all of your VoIP projects. Click here below for details.

Catalyst VoIP Assessment Offer

The new value series 1600 IP sets  will be out soon.  These sets will be supported in an upcoming 4.2+ release. There was some original debate as to these being released as 1700 series.  The  knowledge base now confirms that these sets will be 1600 series.  Docs are starting to trickle out with details about the sets.  These are IP Phones with paper labels much like the old 44xx sets.  They have digital displays and reg/green status LEDs.  The phones have a much updated look similar to the high end 9600 sets. The display is back lit but monochrome.  Read more for links to the documentation.

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Scenario:  DHCP is needed to assign IP phones IP address.  The ports the phones will be plugged into will connect the IP phone and the PC, which will be plugged in to the back of the IP phone.

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Avaya IP Phones in the 46xx and the 56xx series have features built in for administration of some features.  These codes are essential for good administration and moves.  They can be difficult to find, and understand exactly what is being accomplished.  Here is a list of the codes, and the description.

Each code is preceded by pressing the MUTE or the HOLD button.  These two buttons should be interchangeable, but depending on the exact phone series and firmware one or the other may not work.

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The Avaya Gigabit Ethernet Adapter for 4600 series IP Phones (p/n:700416985) has been a popular product lately.  The usage is a bit confusing due to a less than adequate manual that accompanies the product.  Lets review it’s purpose and how it can be implemented.

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Discovery on an IP Phone is the equivalent to the Blue Screen of Death if the background information on what is going on is not available.  Fortunately it does not need to be that drastic.  Discovery simply means that something failed during the registration process.  Here is a breakdown of the Registration process and why the phone enters discovery mode.

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Ever see an IP Phone that shows Discovery on the display followed by an IP Address?  This is indicative of bad communication between the IP Phone and the Gateway (IP Office in this scenario).  IP Office uses the H.323 protocol for communication, so this article will be based mainly on H.323, SIP will be different.

In the registration process the IP Phone will send a Gatekeeper Request (GRQ) to IP Office control unit acting as the Gatekeeper.  The Gatekeeper responds with an packet that acknowledges the phone, lists abilities, and prompts the phone to continue.  The phone then sends a Registration Request (RRQ) to the Gatekeeper, and the login continues.

When this process is broken, the phone can not confirm the Gatekeeper or it’s identity, thus the phone is still in the process of discovery for the Gatekeeper.  Several things to check:

• IP Addresses
• IP Routes
• Firewalls