Does anyone know if there are any issues with using the above phone? Is there anyone using these today with FreePBX?
So far, I’m striking out with the 7841 phones. I purchased three as a test run — upgrading from 504 — but have thus far been unable to get anywhere with them. Granted, I’ve only been at it since this AM, but I haven’t been able to find anything of help.
How is your quest coming 7 days later? Any luck? Did you at least see that the SIP files needed to be loaded via TFTP? <== and that’s where my journey ends.
Quick update: it looks like Cisco has refused to assist with getting the 78xx series running on any servers besides their Unified Communications Manager platform. So far, you and I seem to be the only ones even discussing the 78xx series online. I’m guessing I’ll be spending the rest of today and this weekend trying to figure out if it’s possible to “hack” — using that loosely — these phones to port them over to my Asterisk server.
I much prefer piggy backing off of others work, but I suppose I’m up for the challenge. 
Let me know if your research uncovers anything.
I also tried to get some documentation from our Cisco resource on how to get these setup as a SIP only device with Asterisk but so far came up empty handed.
Luckily, the phones i have been working with are demo phones from Cisco so I will put them back in the box and ship them back to Cisco and not waste any more of my time. Its funny how Cisco knew that I was looking for a phone to use with FreePBX and they managed to send me a phone that has never been tested with it.
I currently have a Cisco SPA514G on my desk which was super easy to setup. I guess we’ll just stick with that model as our standard.
Thanks for getting back to me.
Hey i managed to get the 7841 configured. You have to do it in Endpoint Manager. That’s the only way to configure the phone by the looks of it.
Enable the Cisco 7841 in the list and that should do the trick. I’m still trying to figure how to manually update the firmware as Endpoint manager doesn’t an option to download new firmware for that phone and it is a couple of versions back.
But so far, i have both phones configured with an extensions and working. One issue that I can across is with 3-way calling, it doesn’t seem to work right now so hopefully the newer firmware will fix this.
Eric, did you use the Commercial EPM or the free version to provision them, I know this topic its been out here for awhile but I just got some 7841 and is ridiculous how there’s still very little information about them.
Hi Manny, I ended up returning the demo phones I had and we purchased the Grandstream GXP2140’s instead. They’ve been working very well for us.
Oh darn it LOL, I was hoping somebody figure it out. Im gonna check into those Grandstream.
Thanks again. Have a good one.
How do I enable 7841? I don’t see it in the list of available models… Running latest version of epm.
The commercial EPM does not support the Cisco 7841
The 7841 can run either Enterprise AKA UCM firmware or Multiplatform/Multiprotocol AKA 3PCC firmware. There is a license in the phone that is either Enterprise or 3PCC. You can’t load 3PCC firmware on an Enterprise licensed phone nor can you load Enterprise firmware on a 3PCC licensed phone.
In addition, with the 7841 there is a hardware version. Phones prior to hardware version 3 cannot be upgraded to 3PCC at all. Phones post hardware version V20 must run version 14 or later of the firmware. See the following:
Convert Cisco 7800 and 8800 series IP phones between Enterprise and MPP Firmware - Cisco
To buy the upgrade license you start by creating a Cisco account. Then you go to a Cisco reseller and give them your Cisco account email address and around $40 and they sell you access. Then you login with your account to
and you click on the Enterprise → MPP for Broadworks, others. and you will get instructions for how to do it. You do NOT do the webex cloud updater firmware.
If the phone is upgraded to 3PCC it has a web server and you access it with a web browser and it’s pretty standard to configure with FreePBX.
If the phone is Enterprise you have to manually configure it with an XML file.
Do you know what hardware/firmware version your phone has?
You have given me information I partially already know. It honestly confuses me as to why a module that costs so much and that is so limited, does not support phones that have been out for 10+ years. The entire point of Endpoint Manager is so that I do not have to manually go through and create and edit a config file for a minor change like a blf adjustment. At this point, they should allow for custom templates.
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Sangoma requires any phone vendor who wants their phones to be listed in EPM to write the additions to EPM to support their phone including submitting the firmware for incorporation into EPM. Only Yealink (and maybe a few others) appears to have done this. Cisco in particular regards their phone firmware as separate from their phone hardware - that is, purchasing a Cisco hardware phone - like the 7841 you have - does not give you rights to firmware updates. You must have a Cisco service contract on the phone in order to download firmware updates for it. So even if they agreed to write EPM additions for the 3PCC versions of the 7841 they would never allow firmware to be included in EPM.
With the exception of the Sangoma phones, the rest of the phones in EPM are old because they date from when EPM was written.
The situation with older phone firmware is unfortunate. More and more former phone models have firmware that is difficult to access or simply not available. For example Mitel sells phones that an earlier version 6 of their firmware would work with Asterisk but later version don’t and they have now closed access off to their site to get the earlier phone firmware. When HP acquired Polycom they still have older Polycom firmware available via FTP but you have to dig for it and study a document they made available in the archive that lists what firmware goes to what, but you can no longer go to a website and just download it. Aastra either went out of business or something else but they no longer have firmware available for download. And so it goes.
Part of the problem you see is that when you sell a PBX into a business, there is a huge temptation to try to sell forklift upgrades of phones into the business because that can in many times dwarf the cost of the PBX itself. So many of these PBX vendors will refuse to support phones that aren’t “theirs” you are really on your own. That’s OK when it comes to basic functions - any admin who is experienced with VoIP phones can figure out configuration to get a basic extension line working on most PBXes - but BLF and other function keys not so much.
The story of EPM is that originally EPM was contributed as a free module. However, it never had much interest and received sporadic attention from the FOSS community - so Sangoma wrote their own. The original EPM was renamed OSEPM (OpenSource) and over the years it has been forked multiple times. But the forks only got scant development attention, were active for a while, and then went dead.
The biggest, in my view, problem that caused this was PHP. In retrospect it has been as difficult to develop for as Java because of the constant changes. It and Java and GTAK are awful in this regard - older apps developed for older versions get broken in the new versions because the developers are constantly changing things around. The irony is that people flocked to PHP from Java because of this behavior and now PHP is pulling the same BS. It was a giant amount of development work to get FreePBX updated to work with the latest PHP 8.
The current fork of OSEPM - which works with FreePBX 17 and DOES allow templates to be written and added for phones - lives here:
I made a post with instructions for installing this here
OSS Endpoint Manager keeps crashing - FreePBX / Applications / Modules - FreePBX Community Forums
You probably will have to write a template for the 7841, though, as well as supply firmware. A sample template for a 3PCC phone is here
The 88xx and 78xx series basically use the same template under 3PCC firmware.
Note that there is one other phone provisioner that applies specifically to Cisco phones which is located here:
This is a complete provisioner/tftp setup you would probably put on a separate virtual instance than the PBX. It provisions Cisco phones running the Cisco Enterprise firmware NOT the 3PCC firmware.
The rule of thumb in phone provisioning is:
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If you want a KISS solution, buy Sangoma phones supported by EPM and the EPM module is included for free. That’s fully supported by Sangoma KISS solutions cost money, sonny, FOSS support had always been “if we feel like giving you any” in every FOSS project I’ve ever been involved in.
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If you have zillions of Cisco phones in place running Enterprise firmware, then the USECALLMANAGER patch and the Wriar provisioner is what you want to get involved in
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If you have zillions of Cisco phones in place and you want to upgrade them to 3PCC then Cisco Support is where you get all the XML file documentation from and your on your own for mass provisioning - the Sangoma doc I linked to is a start and look into OSEPM
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If you have a small handful of Cisco phones of either the Enterprise firmware or 3PCC then manually provisioning them by copying a template to a new SEPMAC file and hand editing it with a text editor is going to be the easiest way.
You don’t have to pay for the EPM module, when you use Sangoma phones…it’s free!
Noted and corrected!
Although, what if you aren’t a Sangoma original purchaser but buy something used like this poor fellow?
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How old is this phone? Couldn’t find a production date…
By the way it does not depend on the status of the buyer. You dont have to register it.
ALL Digium&Sangoma phones, which are listed in EPM are supported for free.
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