Cisco ATA 187 Configuration

darrell.spears · ‎08-03-2011

Hello,

I waited a week for my new Cisco ATA 187 to arrive. It came today, but I'm a bit angry with myself. The reason I bought this ATA was I needed a replacement for my old SPA2102. I could not find a new SPA2102 as they are no longer being made. None of the local stores carry them anymore. I did some research and discovered there was an ATA 186, but the ATA 187 replaces that. So I made the decision to purchase the ATA 187. Now that I've got it, I realize it is very different than the SPA2102. I cannot configure it through the web interface, and since I am running my system with Asterisk, it does not look like I can configure it with that either. I do have a SPA9000 in the closet, but it's my understanding after spending more hours digging that the SPA9000 will not work with this ATA either. What a pain this is. I spent over $200 and it's non-refundable, and now I'm stuck with an ATA that will not work with my system.

Does anyone know of a way to get it to work with Asterisk or the SPA9000? Reading here it seems to only work with the Cisco Manager, which I do not have. It's SIP. I would think there should be a way to configure it to work with SIP regardless.

The other thing that's going on - the instructions say to hold down on the start, zero, and pound keys simultaneously on a touch tone phone connected to the ATA 187 which allows me to enter setup mode. As soon as I pick up the receiver I'm hearing a reorder tone (fast busy). Pressing the 3 buttons does nothing. The reorder tone continues to sound. This device is supposed to be brand new, but when I go into the display I'm seeing this:

Phone 1 DN		4770
Status1		Registering
Phone 2 DN		4771
Status2		Registering

The 4770 and 4771 leads me to wonder if someone has configured this previously. The other setting I see is:

TFTP Server 1

10.10.24.2

So it's looking for the configuration file on server 10.10.24.2 I am guessing.

I also see:

Admin. VLAN ID

4095

My router does not support VLAN. So this is another issue where the ATA has this 4 digit ID.

Does anyone know if I can get this to work with what I've got? I cannot afford to buy another voip product. I just need an this ATA to register to my Asterisk server and give me a dial tone. Can I do a factory reset on the ATA 187? I found the command in Cisco after doing lots of digging but it does not work for me. I used:

192.168.0.160/reset where 192.168.0.160 is the IP address of my Cisco ATA 187.

Thanks for your help.

saifuddin.miyaji · ‎08-04-2011

Darrell,

We are also in deep shit by procuring this ATA 187 in bulk and then finding out that it does not work with anything else other then Cisco Callmanager 7.1(5) and above only. We have done lot of investigation but could not find anyway to make it work with anything else then Cisco Callmanager.

Please let us know if anybody has found alternate way of using it.

- Saif

darrell.spears · ‎08-04-2011

Thanks Saif. That doesn't sound good. I guess I should throw this in the garbage. Every store I went to advertising this product says nothing about this major flaw. It's advertised the same way the SPA2102 or PAP2T was. I guess Cisco is getting out of the home consumer VoIP market considering those other VoIP appliances were purchased mainly by consumers wanting a decent VoIP ATA. I can't understand why the ATA 187 is selling for over $200. The SPA2102 sold for $65, included a router, included a web based configuration utility, and worked great!

I did figure out that the instructions that came with this are wrong. To get into the IVR, you lift the receiver and press the setup button. I did a reset on it which erased those extensions that someone else obviously installed. My guess is someone else bought this previously thinking they could use it and then returned it after realizing it only works with Cisco's expensive Call Manager. Is it supposed to make people purchase the Call Manager? I can't see that happening, if that was their plan. Instead I'm going to try Cisco's competitors as other companies make ATAs. I always liked the Cisco brand but this fiasco really puts a lot of doubt in my mind over this company.

serm_roja · ‎03-02-2014

I've bought Cisco ATA 187 for 4 units, since all became paperweight that can't do anything with Asterisk system.