UC540 vs. UC320W?

[JOHN THIEN]

I have installed exactly one UC540, it seems to be working pretty well.  Need to hammer-out some issues, but...

I have another small office interested in switching to a SIP trunk to save on phone costs.  They insist they need no remote phones.  The UC320W has pretty good reviews on Amazon.  Some people on these forums express displeasure with it.

What am I giving up, exactly, going from the UC540 to the UC320?  I know remote phones are out.  Can I use all the same phones locally, though?  Things like auto-attendant and voice mail, are they more limited?  Call handling?  SIP trunks?

Any input welcome.

[danplacek]

1. No VPN.

2. No softphones or wireless phones.

3. Extremely limited call routing.

4. Only one auto attendant with basic features.

5. Must have WAN port connected to internet for several features to function.

6. Designed to be the gateway router for a small network but extremely limited in functionality. Basically the only configurable router/firewall feature it has is basic port forwarding.

7. Only the SPA phones can be used.

8. No single-number-reach

9. No built-in POE ports.

10. No web interface for users.

11. No IMAP support.

12. No site-to-site connections.

13. Limited to 24 phones, 12 simul calls.

14. No meetme bridges.

15. No ability to change default VLANs. (Or add any others)

This list is not complete -- there is a huge feature disparity between the UC300 and UC500 series.

The UC320 has some positives though -- the main one being that it has an end-user friendly web interface for configuration.

-Dan

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[JOHN THIEN]

Thank you Daniel.

I have a follow-up question in regards to switches.  Do I have to use Cisco switches with the UC320 and UC540 servers, or if a customer already has a POE switch from another vendor, will that work instead?

[danplacek]

To be a fully supported deployment, yes you need to use Cisco switches. [and be sure you use CDP capable Cisco switches, I recommend the 300 series switches]

Cisco phones can be made to work with other vendors... but it is a pain and will limit support from Cisco if you have issues.

The important part of using Cisco switches is that the phones use CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol) to automatically find the voice VLAN and connect to it. I do not know of any other vendors that have CDP support in their switches. (which isn't to say there aren't any...)

-Dan

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