Intercom Config

[spencermoore]

Hey, guys. Need some assistance configuring Intercom functionality for 8841's and 7841's (CUCM 10.5) if possible. Here's what I've done thus far:

1. Created Intercom partition

2. Created Intercom CSS

3. Created number of Intercom DN's equal to number of phones. We'd like all users to have this functionality if possible.

4. Created a custom phone template and added "intercom" option.

5. Applied template to 8841 (for testing) but not seeing option on phone.

Questions:

1. The paging system will be attached via analog port. Does it need to be POTS or FXS? 

2. To confirm, I will need to set the "speed dial" option to the DN that I assign to my POTS/FXS port on each Intercom DN on each phone, correct?

3. Are there any other steps that need to be taken?

Note: This is my first major Cisco roll-out and you guys have been a much appreciated resource. Thanks for your time!

[Jaime Valencia]

You might want to take a step back and explain what you're trying to do here, you start by mentioning intercom, and all of the sudden start mixing paging and POTS/FXO ports.

Intercom is meant to be 1:1 between IP Phones, and paging requires InformaCast, or a 3rd party option, which has nothing to do with intercom (as the CUCM feature)

[spencermoore]

I was thinking of paging and intercom as synonymous, but I suppose they aren't. Basically I need users to be able to press a button on the phone and speak over a paging system.  This will require InformaCast?

[Jaime Valencia]

InformaCast is at it's most basic level, the free level, only for IP Phones, the paid version, you can add a separate paging system, or buy a 3rd party system with over head paging.

And as you just found out, no, they're not equivalent features, they're quite different.

[Gregory Brunn]

Informacast free version will only cover 50 phones is a paging group.  If you are ok with that you can download the free version "Cisco Paging Server" as an ova and deploy it on your UCS servers.

Install is pretty straight forward.

If you need more than 50 phones in a paging group you will need to buy licensing.

[Deven Gandhi]

Are you looking to page thru phones or overhead paging?  If you already have overhead paging in place, you can MOST LIKELY tie it to cisco phone system.  Not difficult to do.  We were using valcom 3 zone overhead paging system with avaya and once we migrated to Cisco phone system, we were able to use it with Cisco.

http://www.valcom.com/

-Deven Gandhi
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[Rob Huffman · Accepted solution]

Hi Spencer,

Here is the skinny on CUCM Intercom;

Intercom, a type of phone line, combines the functionality of a traditional line and a speed dial. With an intercom line, a user can call the intercom line of another user, which auto-answers to one-way audio whisper. The recipient can then acknowledge the whispered call and initiate a two-way intercom call.

Users can use an intercom line to dial any other intercom line in the intercom partition, or you can preconfigure the line to target an intercom line outside the intercom partition.

Note	Users can use an intercom line only to dial other intercom lines.

Intercom allows a user to place a call to a predefined target. The called destination auto-answers the call in speakerphone mode with mute activated. This sets up a one-way voice path between the initiator and the destination, so the initiator can deliver a short message, regardless of whether the called party is busy or idle.

To ensure that the voice of the called party does not get sent back to the caller when the intercom call is automatically answered, Cisco Unified Communications Manager implements whisper intercom. Whisper intercom means that only one-way audio exists from the caller to the called party. The called party must manually press a key to talk to the caller.

From;

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/admin/9_0_1/ccmfeat/CUCM_BK_CEF0C471_00_cucm-features-services-guide-90/CUCM_BK_CEF0C471_00_cucm-features-and-services-guide_chapter_0100000.html

So, you can see from this note that Cisco's Intercom is not what you are trying to achieve. In your case, once you determine/build the interface to your overhead paging system (likely using FXS with a TAM-B telephone access module) you could then add a speed dial button on each phone that connects to the paging DN. The speed dial button can have a label that designates this as Intercom if you so desire. But as Java nicely noted these are two very distinct features.

The TAM-B from Bogen is shown on this page;

https://www.bogen.com/products/telephonepaging/

Cheers!

Rob