The various types of Cisco Unified IP Telephony endpoints are as follows:

  • Analog Gateway
  • Cisco Unified IP Phone
  • Wireless Endpoint
  • Cisco Unified IP Conference Station

Analog Gateway – Cisco Unified Communication Manager (CME) gives support for analog phones using Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA) / VG 224 gateways in SCCP mode.  This is used to connect analog devices such as fax machines, modems, TDD/TTYs, and analog phones, to the VoIP network so that the analog signal can be packetized and send out over the IP network.

Cisco VG224 Gateway – This is Cisco’s IOS software based high density 24 port gateway used for connecting analog devices to IP telephony network.  This supports IOS release 12.3.4-XD or higher version.  Using MGCP it connects with Cisco Unified CallManager and it has built-in MGCP failover to an H.323 connection to an Cisco Unified SRST router. T he Cisco VG224 integrates with Cisco Unified CME using either H.323 or SIP.  The Cisco VG224 support Cisco Unified CME 3.1 / later releases.  It is best used with high-density analog devices connecting to the IP network with limited call features, and it a very cost effective solution as compared to Cisco VG248 for operation of up to 24 analog ports.

The Cisco Analog Telephone Adaptor (Cisco ATA) 186 / 188 is analog telephony adapter which connect two analog devices to IP telephony networks.  Cisco ATA 186 has only one 100BaseT Ethernet connection whereas Cisco ATA 188 has an integrated Ethernet switch providing two 10BaseT/100BaseT Ethernet connections for self and a co-located PC or other Ethernet-based device. Both support only unicast Music on Hold (MoH).

Cisco ATA 186/188 can be configured in one of the following ways as under:

  • Cisco ATA web configuration page
  • Cisco ATA voice configuration menu
  • Configuration file downloaded from the TFTP server

The SCCP-based ATA acts like an SCCP IP phone.  The Cisco ATA 186 / 188 can be configured as an H.323 client to Cisco Unified CME or as an H.323 terminal to an H.323 gatekeeper.  When the Cisco ATA registers with the gatekeeper as an H.323 terminal, the H.323 proxy should be stopped for the zone in which the ATA is present.

The Cisco ATA 186 / 188 can also be configured as a SIP client who registers with the SIP server to make phone calls with another endpoint.  The Cisco ATA 186 / 188 can act either as a user agent client (UAC) when it initiates SIP requests or as user agent server (UAS) when it replies to requests.  Both are meant for use with low-density analog devices connecting to the IP networks.  In H.323 mode, by default the Cisco ATA 186/ 188 don’t mark the voice bearer packets correctly.  We need to manually configure the ATA to mark voice bearer traffic with a Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) value of EF by modifying Type of Service (ToS) field from its default value to a ToS value of 0x000000B8. With ATA 3.1 / later releases this configuration change is not required.

Cisco Unified IP Phone comes in low end, mid range and high end flavors.

Low-End Cisco Unified IP Phones – these are used in low traffic situations having limited call features and budget constraints.  The low end Cisco Unified IP Phones include the Cisco Unified IP Phone 7902G, Cisco Unified IP Phone 7905G, Cisco Unified IP Phone 7910G, Cisco Unified IP Phone 7910G+SW, Cisco Unified IP Phone 7911G, and Cisco Unified IP Phone 7912G.

Cisco Unified IP Phone 7902G – this model supports a single line, having a single 10BaseT Ethernet port on the back of phone.  It does not have an LCD screen.

Cisco Unified IP Phone 7905G – this model supports a single line, having a single 10BaseT Ethernet port on back f phone.  Speaker is used in one way listen mode only.

Cisco Unified IP Phone 7910G and Cisco Unified IP Phone 7910G+SW – this model supports single line and speaker in one way listen mode only.  It has six fixed feature access keys which can be configured in a customized button template by administrator having various end user call features.  The difference between the Cisco Unified IP Phone 7910G and Cisco Unified IP Phone 7910G+SW is that the former has a single 10BaseT Ethernet port and the latter has two 10BaseT/100BaseT Ethernet ports.

Cisco Unified IP Phone 7911G – this model supports a single line. It is similar to Cisco Unified IP phone 7912G and supports IEEE 802.3af Power over Ethernet, advanced security and extended software roadmap to support advanced IP features.

Cisco Unified IP Phone 7912G – this model supports a single line and has two 10BaseT/100BaseT Ethernet connections.  The speaker operates in one-way listen mode only.

Mid-Range Cisco Unified IP Phones – are used in high traffic situations, requirement for extensive call features such as speaker, headset and so on.  These phones included – Cisco Unified IP Phone 7940G, Cisco Unified IP Phone 7941G, Cisco Unified IP Phone 7960G, and Cisco Unified IP Phone 7961G.

The Cisco Unified IP Phone 7940G and Cisco Unified IP Phone 7941G support up to two directory numbers, and the Cisco IP Phone 7960G and Cisco Unified IP Phone 7961G can support a total of six directory numbers.  All four phone models are compatible with Cisco VT Advantage video-enabled endpoints for making video calls.

High-End Cisco Unified IP Phones – The Cisco Unified IP Phone 7970G / 7971G, are high-end Cisco Unified IP Phones, and meant to be used in high-traffic situations with extensive call features. T he Cisco Unified IP Phone 7970G has a high-resolution, color touch-screen display, more function keys, and more security features and it supports up to eight directory numbers.

The Cisco Unified IP Phone 7970G has compatibility with Cisco VT Advantage video-enabled endpoints for making video calls.  It is the only phone which supports both Cisco prestandard Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) and the IEEE 802.3af PoE.  To have full display brightness in Cisco Unified IP Phone 7970G, we have to use external power adapter (CP-PWR-CUBE2) with both inline power and IEEE 802.3af PoE.

The Cisco Unified IP Phone 7971G supports up to eight directory numbers and it is at par with  Cisco Unified IP Phone 7970G with the exemption that it has two 10/100/1000 BaseT Ethernet connections.  The gigabit throughput capability allows for high bit-rate and bandwidth-intensive applications on a co-located PC.

Wireless Endpoint – Cisco wireless endpoints use a wireless LAN (WLAN) infrastructure through wireless access points (APs) to have telephony functionality without wires.  These types of endpoints are most ideal for mobile users environment.  The Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone 7920G is a hardware-based phone with a built-in radio antenna which enabled 802.1b wireless LAN connectivity to the network.  These phones register with Cisco Unified CallManager using Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP).

We can configure Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone 7920G by two means one is using phone keypad or other option is using Cisco Unified wireless IP phone 7920 Configuration Utility running on a PC which is connected to phone with USB interface.  We need to configure following parameters to make it work.

Network Configuration – configuring the DHCP server address or other static settings such as IP address, subnet mask, default gateway, TFTP server , DNS server as per the requirement of network.  These settings are present under Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone 7920G under Menu > Network Config > Current Config.

Wireless Configuration – configuring the service set identifier (SSID) for the voice VLAN and the authentication type, WEP key and/or LEAP username and password as required.  These settings are present under Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone 7920G under Menu > Network Config > 802.11b Configuration.

Cisco Unified IP Conference Station – The Cisco Unified IP Conference Station has combination of both conference room speaker-phone technologies with Cisco Unified IP Communications technology.  The Cisco Unified IP Conference Station is used in conferencing environments with 360-degree room coverage.  The Cisco Unified IP Conference Station 7936 comes with an external speaker and three built-in microphones.  The Cisco Unified IP Conference Station 7936 has pixel-based LCD display with backlighting, and optional extension microphones which can be connected to get extended microphone coverage for bigger area.

This completes lesson on Cisco CCNA Voice covering the  types and features of Cisco Unified Communication Manager Express endpoints.