Need a PBX server for Cisco 7900 series phones

[jacobpslagle]

Hello,

I have a bunch of 7942g and 7962g IP phones that I want to use with my business but I'm having trouble finding a server that supports these phones. Something that would support at least 10 phones. I also need to find a good switch with poe to power these phones. Any suggestions?

Jacob

[R0g22]

You can look into BE 4000. A cloud managed UC solution for upto 200 IP Phones but your phone models won't be supported.
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/unified-communications/business-edition-4000/index.html

You can also look into a ISR 2901 or ISR 4321 router in order to run UC. The former is EOL though but you can find it elsewhere. The 4000 series is the latest gen.

From a switch perspective, you can look at the Small business switches here -
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/small-business/switches.html

[jacobpslagle]

Sounds like the ISR 2901 is a great choice for my situation. However, when you are configuring the device does it have a GUI or is it all CLI?

Also, do I need any special licenses from Cisco?

[R0g22]

You do have a GUI but to be frank it's worthless. You will have to setup CME completely to be able to use it. In addition to that SIP Phones are not supported on CME GUI. CLI is worth the effort. Further if you are looking for a tool to configured the router from scratch, sort of, you can look into CCP Express.

For your licensing query, look at my post here -
https://supportforums.cisco.com/t5/ip-telephony/ip-telephony-with-isr4431-license-issue/m-p/3349862#M359934

[jacobpslagle]

Alright, so if I have lets say 10 IP phones 5 7942g and 5 7962g the ISR 2901 will work for them? I found a good POE switch that will work for me. I know which licenses to get. Is there any other software or hardware that I need? Like is call manager on the router or does that run on a server? Will I be able to add a SIP trunk so I can make outbound calls with the phones?

[R0g22]

Yes to all your questions.
The IOS has the voice feature set which are unlocked and used when you add the relevant licenses (uck9 to be precise).

[jacobpslagle]

Alright so all our phones have the correct firmware and now I am just waiting for the router to arrive. Since this setup is pretty small about 10 phones I should only need CUCME. Since we are a small business we don't need to go into a huge contract or anything with Cisco. Where do we get CUCME, the licenses for the phones and router, and will I need any other software with this deployment?

[R0g22]

Where did you purchase the router from ? Hopefully a Cisco Partner. They should be able to get you all the licenses that are required. For the software, the CME is built in to the IOS itself. You unlock the functionality with the uck9 license.
You can refer below as well -

https://supportforums.cisco.com/t5/ip-telephony/ip-telephony-with-isr4431-license-issue/m-p/3349862#M359934

[jacobpslagle]

We were actually just about to order the router from Amazon but if ordering from a partner makes the process easier then I guess we should do that.

[R0g22]

It does but do consider the fact that 29XX routers are EOL/EOS. So from a Partner, you would only have ISR-4k and BE4k options.

[jacobpslagle]

Okay, but do ISR-4k routers support 7900 series phones?

[R0g22]

Yes, they do.

[jacobpslagle]

Alright, so I have the router and the phones all configured. I can make called between phones locally. I just need to set up the voicemail and get a sip trunk configured so I can make and receive phone calls. Any guides on that? I am in trial mode right now so I will be purchasing the licenses very soon.

Also, the command line interface was not very hard to learn. I picked it up pretty quickly and everything is great for now.

Lastly, for the small business edition 4000 is there any way to just purchase the router. Like the whole package is like $3000 and I was just curious if you can just get the router and phones for basic telephony for a cheaper price?

Jacob

[Jaime Valencia]

BE4K is a closed appliance that works on a subscription model to provide you the cloud admin while you have local call control. You cannot turn a regular ISR 4K into a BE4K, or viceversa.

If what you want is to just buy a regular ISR 4K and manually configure everything for CME, you can, just buy the model you want and the necessary licensing.

[R0g22]

For voicemail since you have a ISR-4k, you would something like a Unity Connection or Unity Express virtualized. You can have a UCS-E module running ESXi and have CUE/CUC application on top. Alternatively, you can have a service container/NIM-SSD to run Unity Express off of your ISR-4k.

One more thing to add to what Java has said, currently we only offer 78XX and 88XX IP Phones with BE4k.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/unified-communications/business-edition-4000/index.html#~stickynav=1

Plans to add other phone models cannot be discussed here since it is NDA. You will have to talk to your SE for that if that is a future question of yours.