Catalyst Express 500 802.1q with non-Cisco Phones

[steve.garson]

This weekend we spent hours trying to get 802.1q tagging to work on a VLAN with ShoreTel phones. The user interface on this switch seems to only allow "Cisco-Voice" VLAN, without any specifics. This didn't work. The specs on this switch say that the .1q is supported, but we couldn't figure it out. The more expensive switches were easier to configure for Voip QoS.

Can anyone advise me on the tricks to getting this to work with the lower end Catalyst Express 500? Or does this switch only support 802.1q with Cisco phones?

[Roberto Salazar]

Cisco IP Phone uses CDP to let the ip phone know what vlan it's suppose to be (via voice-vlan). shore tel would definitely not use CDP since CDP is cisco proprietory, so it's voice vlan must be defined on it, I rememer Avaya being the same way. So, having said that, just make sure that the Shore tel Ip phone are in the right vlan. what does not work anyway? shore Tel IP Phone will not come up? Will not get it's configuration from it's software PBX? Use the smartport configuration on CE500.

Please rate all posts.

[steve.garson]

Actually, my post was missing a crucial bit of info: The phones do see the Vlan, but the Cisco switch does not allow the phone servers to work on the same Vlan.

The problem is that the phone system servers need to be set up strictly on the voice VLAN. The switch does not allow that. It specifically gives an error stating that ?only ports configured as IP phone + desktop? can be placed into the voice VLAN.

[jpstott]

Use Cisco Network Assistant Version 4. You can set the switch the way you want with CNA.

[rversluis]

set the smartports to router. It will then trust dscp. Or you can set the smartports to switch, and it will trust cos.