UC500 - set up

[jsperfmon]

The way I understand it all I need for this to work is to purchase a sip trunk from a sip trunk provider for a new office install.

I never did anything VoIP related.

[Alberto Montilla · Accepted solution]

Hi John;

If you refer only to the SIP trunk setup. Answer is yes. All you need to get is a SIP trunk account. If you have not done any VoIP before, I strongly suggest you go with one of the validated SPs. See the list here:

https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-9830#Service_Providers_in_the_CCA_SIP_Trunk_drop_down

Regards
Alberto

[David Trad · Accepted solution]

Hi John,

Since I am not exactly sure as to what you are wanting to achieve or trying to achieve, best of to give you a blanket reply just to be sure and cover all bases

Analogue Trunks:

The UC-500 series can handle FXO analogue trunk lines, the UC-540 can handle "8" and the UC-560 "12" This is not a recommended solution as analogue lines have a unique set of problems and very little functionality, try and avoid this and if possible upgrade them to a digital service.

Digital Trunks:

There are two types of Digital Trunks the UC-500 series can take (All models) and they come with different capacities;

• ISDN-2 which is just standard Basic Rate Interface, much better than analogue by a country mile and more flexible but just limited in the capacity of how many you can handle, the UC-540 can handle 4X BRI ports (8 Lines) and that is pretty much it, the UC-560 can handle 6 ports (12 lines) again that is its maximum and is pretty much in line with what you can do with the Analogue FXO trunks
• PRI Circuits which are also referred to in some places around the world as ISDN as well, and in some countries you can get fractional PRI, meaning you can start of at 10 channels (Lines) and incrementally move them up by 10 until you get to 30 channels... The ultimate in my books, way more versatile, more reliable, and the best flexibility. the UC-560 can handle 2X PRI which is a max of 60 Channels and for a UC-560 this is perfectly fine if you were to max it out at 138 users.

You probably already knew all of the above anyway, but might be usefull for others

Sip Trunks:

The UC-500 series can handle 2 ITSP (Internet Telephony Service Providers) but in all honesty keep it simple unless you need redundancy and use one, but ask them for more than one channel I.E most work it in multiples of 2 channels. Use the link that Albert provided and find an ITSP of your likings which is compatible with CCA, which also means much easier to setup... This does not mean you cannot use your own one that is not in the list, you just need to be mindful that their infrastructure either may not work well with the Cisco IOS as a gateway, or they do not have their network setup in a way that will work well with the Cisco IOS and thus may result in extra configuration work on your end to get it to work.

My Recommendation is if you are going to use SIP then be mindful that if the Internet goes down they will loose all call routing capabilities, inbound and outbound, so you should consider at least 1-2 analogue or digital lines for backup, but some customers don't care and just want the cost savings which is fine as long as you set their expectations from the beginning.

Just some word of advise, try and stick with using CCA, especially when it comes to using SIP trunks, you really need to lock the system down as the ever increasing nature of Toll Fraud is not easing up and the cartels out there are becoming more smart on how to circumvent semi exposed systems, never leave the system open for this otherwise in 24 hours you can find yourself explaining to a client how they got a 3-5K bill from calling Cuba or other high tolling countries.

Cheers,

David.