7925 end-of-sale and 8821 wireless phone compatibilty issues

[Iyad Musleh]

I support about 700 heavily used Cisco 7925G wireless phones in our environment. Now that Cisco is suddenly phasing them out, with end of sale in October, in favor of the 8821 we're left with a few dilemmas that can potentially be very costly.  I haven't been able to find much documentation either.  First, are the 7925 desktop and multi-phone charging stations compatible with the 8821 phones?  Second, are the 7925 and 8821 batteries interchangable?  Third, the 8821 datasheet states its compatible with CUCM 9.1 (2) and later.  Does that mean they will not work in my 8.5.1 environment?  Lastly, the datasheet states the access point support minimum version of 7.0.250. What are the implications if I have access points with lesser versions, like 7.0.235.3 or 7.0.240.0?

Anyone have any input or advise? It'll be greatly appreciated.  Thank you.

[Jaime Valencia · Accepted solution]

Someone can confirm, but I believe that neither the charging stations nor the batteries are compatible, if someone already has both in their environment, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

As to the version, yes, they will not work on your 8.x release as they require 9.1(2) in order to work.

[Iyad Musleh]

More reason to upgrade to 11.x asap.  Thanks Jaime for the lightning response, as always.

[Phill Johntony]

The 8821 11.0(3) firmware release notes state CUCM 9.1(2) is the minimum version, but the CUCM Device Package Compatibility Matrix states the device pack for CUCM 9.1(2) is "To be released."

Any idea when the device pack for 8821 support will be released for CUCM 9.1(2)?

[Andrew West]

I can tell you that is released for 9.1(2) SU2 because that is what we run and Im already deploying 8821 phones without issue after loading the devpack last weekend. 

[Phill Johntony]

Thanks Andrew, I misunderstood the compatibility matrix and now see the device pack for 9.1.2.

[Leo Laohoo]

First, are the 7925 desktop and multi-phone charging stations compatible with the 8821 phones?

No.  The physical dimensions of the phone is already a dead giveaway.  

Second, are the 7925 and 8821 batteries interchangable?

No it is not. 

[Iyad Musleh]

I was afraid of that.  Thanks Leo for the confirmation.

[John Kahl]

Non of the hardware is compatable,  Also note that the normal config process for the 7921 and 7925 is no longer valid.    When you attempt to connect https to the phone you only get access to view the settings.  In order to change anything you must now connect to http://x.x.x.x:8443.  Please note it seems you can no longer specify Channels or Minimum connection rate on the phone as described in the old best practices for the 7925.

You can now create a wireless profile and group to set frequency, SSID and PSK keys in CUCM.

[Iyad Musleh]

Thanks John.  There are indeed so many caveats with switching over to the 8821 and so many bugs to go along with it.  Even the WLAN config best practices and controller minimum requirements have changed, requiring a resurvey and reconfiguration of our wireless infrastructure.  This whole process has proven very costly and time consuming.  Why Cisco would give such little notice before killing the 7925 is beyond me and many others working in a healthcare environment.

[Leo Laohoo]

Why Cisco would give such little notice before killing the 7925 is beyond me and many others working in a healthcare environment.

Hold on, this comment is completely unfair.  Cisco released the EoS announcement (HERE) on 15 July 2016.  

There was ample notice.  The main argument is whether your vendor knew about it or not.  Our vendor knew nothing about the EoS notice.  We took it upon ourselves to be proactive and I subscribed to the RSS feeds about EoS notices.  This is why I gave our voice team a heads-up about this.  

In regards to bugs, this is to be expected.  I know a few people who've purchased the 8821 and, like me, they are sitting in their boxes undeployed.  Read the Release Notes and the Open Caveats section and you'll see roaming is currently the biggest issue with this hardware. 

When the 7921G/7925G first came out it had the same problem and the model didn't come "good" until firmware 1.4(3) fixed it.  

And no, the firmware for the 8821 and the 7921G/7925G are completely different.  The wireless NIC chip is also different.  The roaming issue is a work-in-progress.  

[Iyad Musleh]

This is nothing personal Leo. As much as I prefer using Cisco products and the support that comes along with it, I stand by my comments. They are indeed fair, regarding this specific EoS. Three months (July 15 to Oct 15) is not nearly enough time to string all the pieces and budgets together to make this happen for many large environments.  The fact that we are still all just sitting on new 8821s and not having a way to replenish our supply of 7925s (back-ordered since before EoS and currently 6-8 weeks back ordered for 3rd party refurbs) should be proof enough of a process that needs improvement.  It's my hope that the decision makers at Cisco would learn from this and not repeat the same mistake the next time around.