The first thing I noticed when looking at the box was that the first FXO and FXS port have a PFO that is a hardwired link that will allow an outgoing call to the PSTN should the system be down. This seems like a good feature especially for an alarm system phone line or the ability to dial 911 when the system is down. The next thing I saw was a music on hold jack. In the past with an ISR router, if you wanted a live moh source you had to buy an E&M card and craft a cable, and I do mean craft, to connect it to your music source. Once I brought up my UC520 the first time, I plugged in a console cable and started to look around. To my suprise the 4 built in FXO ports had mac-addresses. There also was a new phone type in the configuration anl, short for analog. What this means is that you can configure these ports like IP phones and now easily include them in hunt groups. cool.
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UC500.comCisco Communication Manager Express, UC520, SMB VOIP reference and community |
At first look there are some interesting differences in the hardware between an ISR Router running CallManager Express and a UC520.
UC520 - one complaint
The only thing I found frustrating, since it is sold as a router/firewall/phone system for a small office, was that while it supported DMVPN it had no support for any routing protocols.
As a phone system for 6 users it's great, was quick to set up and haven't had a complaint since I installed it.
anl phone types and stcap
Thanks! I really appreciate the feedback. I'll add a link on how to configure it under the Call Manager Express Configuration Guide on the site.
It really is a cool feature to get the router to not use those ports as part of the gateway but rather look at them as SCCP phones.
Ted
anl phone type
The FXS ports are using stcapp, which enables you to use the port as if it were an SCCP phone. It's a very handy feature and allows much more flexibility with analog phones. Each port is bound via a dial peer with the "service stcapp" keyword, which I believe is when a MAC address is created.
This feature has been around in IOS for a while. I used it on an ISR with CCME not too long ago, and it made it much easier for the client because they could manage the port through the CCME web interface.