There’s a fairly significant bug in the Grandstream GXP-2130, 2140 and 2160 firmware that results in horrible sound quality when multicast multicast pages are initiated from FreePBX. I have an open support ticket with Grandstream and they were initially trying to pawn the problem off as a FreePBX or Asterisk issue. The ticket was opened on April 3rd and they are supposedly looking into the problem but frankly, I don’t see this being fixed any time soon.
Here are the values I’m using on the Grandstream 2130 and 2160 to listen for multicast pages. You’ll need to set the following P values in the base file using EPM:
##############################################################################
## Settings/Multicast Paging
##############################################################################
# Paging Barge. 0 - Disable, 1 - priority 1, 2 - priority 2, 3 - priority 3,
# 4 - priority 4, 5 - priority 5, 6 - priority 6, 7 - priority 7, 8 - priority 8,
# 9 - priority 9, 10 - priority 10. Default is 0.
# Number: 0 - 10
# Mandatory
P1566 = 0
# Paging Priority Active. 0 - Disabled, 1 - Enabled
# Number: 0, 1
# Mandatory
P1567 = 0
# Multicast Paging Codec. 18 - G.729A/B, 0 - PCMU, 8 - PCMA, 2 - G.726-32, 9 - G.722
# Number: 18, 0, 8, 2, 9. Default is 0.
# Mandatory
P1568 = 0
### Multicast Listening ###
# Priority 1
# Listening Address
# String
# This can be any valid multicast IP address and port. The value below is the one we're using
P1569 = 239.200.1.1:6767
# Label
# String
P1570 = Page All
You can still do multicast paging by using Grandstream’s Multicast Paging mode on a programmable button. The example below sets button 5. You’ll need to download the Grandstream Configuration Template to get the P codes for the other buttons.
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Multi-Purpose Keys - GXP2130/2160 only
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# MPK 5
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Key Mode.
# 0 - Speed Dial, 1 - BLF, 2 - Presence Watcher, 3 - eventlist BLF
# 4 - Speed Dial via active account, 5 - DialDTMF, 6 - Voicemail, 7 - CallReturn
# 8 - Transfer, 9 - CallPark, 10 - Intercom, 11 - LDAP Search, 13 - Multicast Paging
# 14 - Record
# Number: 0-11, 13, 14
# Mandatory
P327 = 13
# Account. 0 - Account 1, 1 - Account 2, 2 - Account 3, 3 - Account 4, 4 - Account 5, 5 - Account 6
# Number: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
# Mandatory
P313 = 0
# Name. Max length allowed is 128 characters.
# String
P314 = Page All
# User ID. Max length allowed is 64 character
# String
# Bedford
P315 = 239.100.1.1:6767
# Billerica
P315 = 239.200.1.1:6767
The sound quality is fine using this method but there are a couple of issues. First, there’s no way to play any kind of introductory tone before the page and it’s pretty weird to suddenly hear a page coming over the speaker phone. Secondly and obviously, you can’t do any of the things that paging pro brings to the table; specifically, pre-recorded messages, and scheduled pages. Also, you’ll need to be running 1.0.4.23 firmware as there are significant issues with earlier versions.
Lastly, I’d urge you to open a support ticket to report the sound quality issue. The more complaints they get, the more likely it’s going to get fixed.
Hope this helps