Well, I've been learning the eccentricities of Cisco's product lines the hard way! Here's my situation:
I've taken over for an office that has a hosted Cisco IP phone system using a variety of what seem to be older Cisco phones (the one at my desk is a 7960) these are normally powered by the PoE that gets delivered by some Cisco Catalyst 3750X switches. Our office has grown to the point where we've had to place a few people into some semi-jury rigged seats in areas with limited network drops. As a result I need to do something creative to get phones over there.
I first went out and purchased a small 8 port switch with 4 PoE ports on it from a competitor and this was where I discovered that the models of Cisco phones I had needed something generally referred to as Cisco Pre-Standard PoE (or some variation on that theme). I returned the switch and after doing some research decided to buy a Cisco SD208P switch, which a few messages out on the Interwebs led me to believe should be able to power the switch (possibly a firmware upgrade would be needed).
So I got the switch today, and plugged my phone into it and... nothing. No signs of life on the phone. (And nothing as simple as plugging it into one of the non-PoE ports on the switch). I went online to try and find a firmware update, and couldn't find anything. It's also an unmanaged switch, so I'm not even sure how I'd update firmware on it if I wanted to (and there's nothing in the manual).
I went back and double-checked some of the sources that may have led me to believe that this would work and I found what turned out to mostly be people recommending this as a possible option, but not strictly saying it worked for them. I found one person saying it worked for some Cisco phones, but he didn't specifically say they were prestandard ones. Lastly, there is mention of 200 and 300 series switches being firmware upgradable to support prestandard PoE, but from looking around Cisco's site I'm not 100% sure that this switch is actually part of the 200 series despite the number in the name. It seems to show up in a Small Business Unmanaged Switch category online rather than in any proper series.
So, the question is - have I just missed something somewhere? Is there any hope for me? Or do I have to send this back and go for something else? If so, what's recommended? Perferably something in that price range or we might just give in and... gasp... buy power supplies.
Thanks,
Chris.
