Overhead paging/ringing w/ CME

[goldbergj]

Hello all,

I have a client with a CME 3.4 system in at a concrete plant. What they want to accomplish is that when a phone internally rings, they can have an outside loudspeaker which will alert them by ring or other audible alert to let them know the phone is ringing. The workers carry 7920's but its too loud outside to hear it so they need this instead.

Anyone know of how to do this, TAC said they werent sure...

Thanks,

JG

[tim.bryson]

If you have some MGCP analog stations you can assign one of them to ring when the number in question rings. Then you connect the ringing analog line to an external loud bell that takes ringing voltage to trigger it.

[drew.freeman]

we've done heaps of paging/loudspeaker stuff lately for a mining company with all CME ...

depends how loud you want the ringer ..

The methods we've used are:

- external analogue ringer attached to an ATA ... ie assign the same ephone-dn to phone and ATA port

- crack open phone and solder cable to speaker and run to an amplifier/speaker

[kumezawa]

ditto to the ATA (and/or FXS) solution.

Most of our locations where we replaced a legacy PBX/Key system were already using "Valcom" horns and/or paging.

We pretty much just moved them over to the ATA ports and had those ports ring on the same ephone-dn ("button.")

Of course it's never that simple is it...?

Here's a website for the horns/paging gear. (er, not that I'm advocating this manufacturer necessarily...just somewhere to start.)

http://www.valcom.com/

good luck!

[BronwynH68]

Hi, I have a similar query. We are putting IP phones into our branches. As they dont have switchboards, we use an overhead bell which is set on a call group so that any free member of staff can pick up the phone if the main number rings. My techies have told me that the solution is to buy and IP phone, tape up and place it high up out of reach to act as a ringer. You can imagine my response, so I have been challenged to find an alternative. This is normal practice is large offices, and I find it hard to imagine that CISCO does not supply or support a bell of some sort for these scenarios. Can someone tell me if there is a CISCO bell solution or if other ringers will work.

Thanks

Bronwyn

[tim.bryson]

Cisco does not make a bell or ringer in fact I don't know of any other phone manufacturer that makes one either. Phone manufacturers generally rely on third party devices for ringers

There are two ways to activate a third party bell, ringer or tone.

1. Using a contact closure

Some phone manufactures supply dry contacts to connect to a third party ringer.(When the contact closes it activates the bell)

2. Ringing voltage to the bell (an FXS port rings supplying voltage to the bell causing it to ring)

Now since Cisco does not have a "closure" that I know of available then option two is your answer

What you do is hook up the device to an FXS port and program that FXS port to ring when the phone or line is ringing.

Many manufactures make quality bells or ringers with different sounds and loudness.

Here's a few I would recommend

For a loud environment

http://www.valcom.com/v9925a.htm

For an office area

http://www.wheelockinc.com/catalog/pages/telephone/6-3.pdf (Model CH-AT1-W is for ringing voltage)

Also if there is an existing overhead paging system then there may be solutions to have it ring.

I would definitely not put a phone in the ceiling.

[BronwynH68]

Thanks Tim, much appreciated. I thought there must be a better way.

Bronwyn

[kdamisch]

Customer currently has a legacy PBX with 5 phones, and their Valcom paging system includes a 1030C paging horn, a VP-624 power supply, and a V-9924B External Ringer. Incoming calls ring all 5 phones, plus the ringer. They have DSS buttons for speed dial and line status for all 5 phones on each phone. And, we have a page button setup on the phones to make overhead pages through the horn.

We are going to me migrating them to be a remote site off of a CCM 4.2(3) system at the main site. Main site has a 2811 router setup as an H323 gateway. Incoming calls to the remote site's main number will be via a DID on a PRI circuit at the main site. Connectivity between main and remote sites will be via ethernet ports on 3560s through a site-to-site wireless link, so no router will at the remote site. At the remote site, we were planning on using 5 7960 phones and an ATA to connect to the paging system.

The problem we are trying to get past is how to make incoming calls to the remote site ring all 5 phones plus the ringer and have line appearances on each phone for each of the 5 phones to show line status, as well as having a speed dial to access the paging system to make overhead pages.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Kevin

[kumezawa]

"any suggestions?" ad nauseum!

...sorry for the long post. in the end the clearest way seemed to me to be to just show it...

- Some of what you do on the ATA will depend on the Valcom hardware. I'm 99% sure it was a 9924 tho.

- Strictly speaking I'm not sure about if/how to apply CFB and CFNA in the hunt group. what you see below is working but hopefully someone else will post some thoughts/improvements...

here's a slightly sanitized (phone numbers removed) look at our config. We're doing pretty much what you asked. I can't say what the line appearances look like on the phones though. (I'm not onsite and we installed this last summer)

I've only shown one example phone but there are several people who answer the main line and they all have their own DN on button 1 and the "Main line" on button 2. so they all have this part the same: 2c35,173,174,175

ephone 4

description Receptionist

ephone-template 1

username "Recep" password RecepPassword

mac-address 0017.0DB8.AG6A

<<>>

speed-dial 1 1001 label "Paging"

speed-dial 2 918005532447 label "TAC"

speed-dial 3 918008252661 label "Valcom TechSupport"

paging-dn 181

type 7960

button 1:4 2c35,173,174,175 <<>>

the ATA:

ephone 49

description ATA01-Port 1 (Ringer)

mac-address 000A.BB66.BA09

type ata

button 1o35,173,174,175 <<>>

ephone 50

description ATA01-Port 2 (Paging)

mac-address 0ABB.66BA.0901

paging-dn 181 <<>>

type ata

The ephone-DNs:

ephone-dn 181

number 1001

name Paging

paging ip 239.255.1.2 port 2000

ephone-dn 4 dual-line

number 9001

pickup-group 1

label Pat Receptionist - 9001

description 999-777-9001

name Pat Receptionist

call-forward busy 9099 <<<9099 being CUE voice-mail.>>>

call-forward noan 9099 timeout 10

corlist incoming longdist-css

ephone-dn 35 dual-line

number 9000

pickup-group 1

label Main# - 9000

description 999-777-9000

call-forward noan 9098 timeout 19 <<<9098 being CUE Auto-Attendant>>>

corlist incoming longdist-css

huntstop channel

no huntstop

ephone-dn 173 dual-line

number 9000

pickup-group 1

label Main# - 9000

description 999-777-9000

preference 1

call-forward noan 9098 timeout 19

corlist incoming internal-css

huntstop channel

no huntstop

ephone-dn 174 dual-line

number 9000

pickup-group 1

label Main# - 9000

description 999-777-9000

preference 2

call-forward noan 9098 timeout 19

corlist incoming internal-css

huntstop channel

no huntstop

ephone-dn 175 dual-line

number 9000

pickup-group 1

label Main# - 9000

description 999-777-9000

preference 3

call-forward busy 9098

call-forward noan 9098 timeout 19

corlist incoming internal-css

huntstop channel <<>>

[robfriezo]

hello-

so, does this actually work as far as paging both ip phones (multicast) AND whatever is connected to port 2 on the ATA? Seems like that is what you are trying to do here. Is that the case? Perhaps with newest ATA firmware?

[kumezawa]

Yep, it's been in Prod for >2 years at at least two of our locations.