Overhead Paging with Callmanager

[drewtimmerman]

I am finding all sorts of information about setting up paging through phones on CallManager Express. What about CallManager? I can't find anything on this. I've found commands such as ephone-dn, but this doesn't apply to a 2800 series router or CallManager. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[stomasko]

CCM has some features CME doesn't and CME has some CCM doesn't. I believe paging is one of the features that is not supported by CCM. The ephone-dn commands do apply to the 2800 series router (as well as several others) however you must have the voice software feature set to support them.

Hope this helps clear things up.

Steve

[erik.briggs]

We set up a phone to auto-answer when its extension is dialed. We set the phone's headset port, so it is wired to the overhead paging speakers. Then we set the phone to use the headset , by hitting the headset button and ending the call. In this way, when it auto-answers, it goes straight to the overheadpaging speakers. The dialer is then broadcasted.

Its not a perfect solution, but it works. Some problems we have with this particular solution: The extension for some departments have matched the prefix to numbers in the area. If users forget to dial 9 (which happens), they accidentally dial the overhead. Happens with faxes too :). If the power goes out, and the phones reboot, someone needs to go hit the headset button again when they are back up.

Hope that helps someone.

[jgs1393]

Don't know whether this will help but I have been looking into the same problem.

There is a company called Berbee that make a product called InformCast. You may already be aware of it since I am replying so late to your post.

Contact details are

Berbee Corporate Headquarters

5520 Research Park Drive

Madison, WI 53711-5377

608.288.3000

608.288.3007 fax

talkwithus@berbee.com

Regards

Gerry Seal.

[elliottbujan]

We install a paging system mainly for our warehouses using the following equip.:

1 ata-186

1 Valcom paging control

x paging horns w/volume controls and powered by a Valcom power adapter.

This works very good. The ata is configured with a DN (cti route point). I'm pretty sure you could have multiple zones configured.

A different way that I learned last week is to use 7960 phones and assign 2 dn for paging, where 1 is the paging ext. # and the 2nd is set to autoanswer. Drawback: you need 7960s all over the place.

Also I'm looking into the possibility of using one of Valcom's IP speakers PoE (vip-410) to replace the paging control adapter+ata. Berbee has another IP speaker but it's more expensive ($750).

I hope this helps.

Elliott Bujan

Initial Tropical Plants

[Keithr73_2]

We did a similar thing with our CallManager.

Used an ATA 186 set up as an extension and pluged it into a Valcom 9970. Added the Ext to the phones that needed the paging, just labled the line appearance as Page. We used just a cheap stereo amp in line between the Valcom and the actuall speakers to give us volume control.

[dhingst]

As others have said CallManager can't do paging through phones. You can use a phone, ATA, E&M port or a voip capable speaker/amplifier to page with.

In one location I've got a building with an overhead speaker system and another building with only Cisco phones. The Bogen amplifier for the overhead has a 600 ohm telephone input which is wired to an e&m port on a router and this works very well. There is a document on CCO on how to do overhead paging using an e&m port.

For paging on the Cisco phones I use software from Syn-Apps which seems to work well. http://www.syn-apps.net/

[kesavars]

You can configure a route pattern for the extension that maps to paging system's extension number and have the route pattern send the digits to a router/gateway . On the router , depeding on which port the paging system is connected , configure a dial-peer with destination pattern that matches the paging extension and have the dial-peer use the paging port (FXS/FXO).

Valcom makes overhead paging systems that connect to FXS/FXO ports.