We are running the latest version of FreePBX.
We are looking to replace our older cisco small business phones with newer 8800 series 3PCC versions.
I am baffled at the lack of support for any modern Cisco phones on FreePBX.
Is there any updates on when 8800 series 3PCC or even 7800 series phones will be supported?
I mean, if FreePBX wants to exist in a market beyond just 10 person offices, why has there been such neglect on testing and certifying new templates for modern cisco phones? Especially since 3PCC versions have been out for several years.
Iâm not sure why you are labeling FreePBX here not being able to serve more than 10 person offices. We are serving clients with close to 300 endpoints.
And why do you accuse FreePBX for âneglect on testingâ? when it doesnât even depend on FreePBX.
Yes, I understand your frustration, but as long as Cisco isnât cooperating, or until FreePBX allows you to create your own templates, then thereâs nothing really you can do other than building your own provisioning server, or register them manually.
And technically, you can build your provisioning server on FreePBX as well, weâve done that in the past for brands that are not currently supported.
But I do agree with you that itâs missing a ton of newer models in most supported brands.
Not to mention that Ciscoâs SIP-firmware is usually full of bugs and you have to apply a patch to Asterisk for full BLF support.
Donât get me wrong, I love Cisco phonesâŚbut freePBX must support phones first, which are made for Asterisk, like the new Sangoma D-Series phones!
On my Cisco 8961 I have to use a SIP firmware which is 8 years oldâŚjust because the devs introduced a bug into later Cisco FW versions, which destroys the âcall completed elsewhereâ feature.
I am baffled that people still think Cisco makes phones for the sake of making phones. They donât. They are not Yealink or Polycom, etc.they are Cisco. They like to do things the Cisco way and thus the Call Manager platform. It really doesnât matter if itâs Asterisk/FreePBX or another PBX system like 3CX, these phones are not designed for them they are designed for the Call Manager platform.
So to be clear here, those lines of Cisco phones are meant for the Call Manager. Yes, they can work as basic SIP phones with other systems but their higher level features like BLF, conferencing, pickup, etc. will require a specialized patch (as pointed out) and some extra work to make their feature set worth using on FreePBX.
You also have to look at the upside on this. If you werenât running a FreePBX or another Asterisk based system that let you modified things, youâd be really screwed because PBX systems like 3CX and others donât let you just patch and recompile their source and will never have the ability to unlock the feature sets of those phones.
New devices are added to EPM at the request and cooperation of the phone manufacturer. You can talk about it here to raise awareness, but otherwise there is little value to this discussion. Your efforts need to be directed to the phone maker.
Fair enough. However, still going to run into the same issue as we do with the latest Polycoms. Which is, like Polycom, they arenât certified vendors with FreePBX. So just like with every new Polycom that has been released there is no support for them.
The EPM documentation for support devices recommends that you use only certified partners for full support and compatibility. Non-certified receives no support and very basic updates. When you look at the list, itâs not pretty. Yealink comes out as the only non-Sangoma phone that has fully support across all their models in the EPM. Well, HTek does to but itâs HTek.
For me the EPM has lost a lot of its appeal. Over the past few years the amount of supported devices that are actually supported by the vendor has gone down considerably. Pretty much all of the Polycom models are EOL or on the EOL road (such as the old VVX models). The cost was raised and even Phone Apps went to a âWorks with Sangoma stuff but other phones are best effortâ.
I ended up letting multiple EPM licenses expire because it lacked any current support and really limited my abilities to use the full feature set that the phones I use like Polycom and even Yealink. So I just ended up doing my own provisioning server and templates to deal with what I needed. Including supporting Yeastar gateways.
No offense but usually itâs the smaller business that reaches out to the bigger one for partnership. Now of course Sangoma would like to sell their own phones but Cisco and Polycom are probably worth considering too.
Are you saying that from experience with the 8800 series phones or just parroting old knowledge about the obsolete 7900 series which we all know had poor SIP firmware?
What about in cases where the phone maker, like Polycom, used to be a certified partner and are no longer one? Iâm not sure why the partnership with Polycom ended, be it Polycomâs or Sangomaâs call. So what would compel them now to rejoin the partner program?
Actually, the fair question is what would compel any phone maker to approach Sangoma and request to be part of the EPM?
I think you need to read up more on what 3PCC phones are.
Itâs easier to replace the phones than it is the phone system. I inherited FreePBX and love it or hate it, thatâs the phone system we have and I want to make it successful.
New 8800 series cisco phones have much better sound quality than our 10 year old cisco small business phones. Why cisco and not anything else? Why anything else and not cisco? Itâs our preferred phone.
I disagree completely.
Agreed. I think Sangoma has a bit of a complex here that Cisco, Polycom, and other phone manufacturers should come crawling to them for the privilege of being certified on FreePBX.
Itâs not about any complexâŚ
Cisco must want it and provide the solution, I think. And my personal opinion, Cisco must apply the same quality standards to the SIP FW as they apply to their own protocol.
People should stop posting âmy Cisco worksâ, when important features donât work with Asterisk
so my original question still hasnât been answered.
Are there any plans at all for FreePBX/Sangoma to actually certify any cisco phone from this decade?
I just got off the phone with them today actually where they told me that HA isnât supported anymore. HA was deprecated as of version 14 with no solution in place to offer any real HA functionality.
At every turn this product seems relegated to small offices of 10 people and not for any semblance of enterprise.
What solution? Cisco have released 3PCC versions of their phones which opens the firmware and allows companies like Sangoma to more easily certify the devices with their phone systems. 3PCC phones from Cisco have been out for a few years now, itâs not bleeding edge. With this said, what more do you feel Cisco should be doing? I feel like theyâve done their part, now the Sangomaâs of the world need to do theirs.
I am just a user of freePBXâŚhave been using it for many yearsâŚcame from Trixbox, where you had to spend several days just to fix severe bugs in the distro before you could use it.
So I think the freePBX project is quite a success!
The new management of Sangoma is brilliantâŚbuying Digium to improve Sangomaâs hardware portfolio (S-Series phones are inferior phones) and being able to adapt Asterisk to their needsâŚjust great!
Most importantly, Sangoma employs now very capable guys, like Malcom Davenport, âŚ
The future looks bright
Since all devs at Sangoma might be currently very busy to merge the hard- & software of two companiesâŚand hopefully to improve the integration of the D-Series phones in freePBX, how much time will be left to write a code for Cisco phones with their own extensions to the SIP-protocol?
