atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems ESI Telephones & Systems Softphone as SIP Endpoint on ESI System

Working on a new in-house demo system and I wanted to know if anyone else has had any experience working with softphones as SIP Endpoints on any of the ESI Systems.

We have an ESI-100 now with some ESI Local IP Phones but we would also like to get some SIP Endpoints up and running as well.

I use X-Lite on my Asterisk server at home so that is what I am most familiar with, but the ESI system doesn't want to play nice with my X-Lite softphone, and ESI hasn't been able to help me so far.

ESI has only ever worked with Grandstream and Aastra phones as SIP Endpoints and I was wondering if anyone has any softphones up and running with an ESI System.

Just as a follow up I was able to get the Express Talk Softphone working with our ESI-100 as a SIP Endpoint.

I've also tried X-Lite v.2 and v.3, as well as SJPhone, and so far only Express Talk has worked successfuly with our ESI-100 System.

jr, would you be willing to provide more details on what was involved to get the SIP endpoint working? I'm sure may of the other ESI guys (like me) are curious. Myself, I am not ashamed to admit that I know very little about SIP.

thanks!

Setup for the SIP Endpoints on the ESI side is simple if you know what to look for. The biggest stopping block for me was setting up the SIP Endpoints on the ESI System manually, unlike the auto-config on the ESI IP Phones.

The other problem I've had is finding SIP Endpoints that are compatible with the ESI Systems. So far I have the Express Talk Softphone working, and I know ESI has used Grandstream and Aastra phones successfully.

I ended up on ESI's tech support line more than a few times and they finally gave me some sample configurations that they had used for testing different SIP Endpoints. I would love to share the sample configurations with everyone here but they are marked confidential by ESI.

I will try and talk to ESI about sharing the samples with everyone, but in the mean time if you need help, or just have some questions on SIP Endpoints with ESI you can PM me.

For everyone here I've put together a little something for SIP Endpoints on the ESI Systems. If you have any feedback, questions, comments, etc. feel free to PM me.


Jon's Quick and "Easy" guide to SIP Endpoints on ESI Systems.

Hardware:
All of my testing was done on an ESI-100 with 684 card and IVC24 card.

I have personally tested the Express Talk Softphone and confirmed it to be working on our ESI System.

I also tried the X-Lite and SJPhone Softphones, but I was unable to get them working properly.

ESI has used Grandstream HT488 and Aastra 9133i phones successfully.

Setup:
1. You will need to get the MAC Address of the SIP Endpoint that you will be using, as well as an IP Address and subnet mask.

2. Once you have the SIP Endpoint's information you will need to manually program it onto an extension number for your IVC Card.

3. Once you have the IVC Card programmed for the Endpoint you will need to program the SIP Endpoint to connect to the IVC Card's IP Address, and the system uses 5060 for the proxy port and 4060 for the rtp port.

4. The SIP Endpoint will use the extension number as its user name, and the default password is 0.

5. Once the SIP Endpoint is programmed you can now attempt to connect and register to the IVC Card.

Troubleshooting:
There were 2 problems that I continually faced while setting up SIP Endpoints on the ESI System:

1. Registration timeout 408 - The IVC Card was taking too long to respond to the Endpoint and failed to register properly. I resolved this issue by power cycling the ESI System.

2. Registration not found 404 - I am still working on this issue, but it appears that certain SIP devices will not register properly with the IVC Card (particularly the X-Lite and SJPhone Softphones). This could be something as simple as a setting that I have missed somewhere, but I have still not been able to find out how to get around it.

Just a note to all who may be interested. SIP support for the Comm Server line is still officially in Beta. Anything about configuration discussed here might have no relation to how it will look when it is officially released.

If any board members are part of the Beta program, they might want to reread their Beta testing agreements to make sure they aren't violating the terms to which they are signed.

That said, I can't understand anyone would want a SIP softphone for the Comm Server when there is VIP softphone.

Brian:

I thought about the SIP phone issue a bit, and my personal opinion is that I feel that the interface on the VIP softphone could be better, so others on the market may be a better fit. Also a SIP softphone wouldn't need Outlook as a host. Thirdly the SIP softphone is cheaper if you're deploying it in volume.

Same idea here too Jim.

We're testing some of the different softphones for the simple fact that some users may already be accustomed to using a phone, or they may not want to be tied to Outlook.

The third party softphones are nice in that they can be used as a standalone program, and most third party softphones support multiple operating systems as well.

But, if Windows and Outlook are not a problem then we definitely recommend using the VIP Softphone for its integration with the ESI System, or even an IP Feature Phone for its easy setup and familiar features.

I haven't done enough volume yet to run into anyone who doesn't use Outlook.

Jim when you say the interface could be better are you referring to the aesthetics? VIP Pro made several major leaps in functionality this spring that I don't see how any SIP softphone could match. You can now map just about any feature to a key or combination of keys.

Brian:

I agree that a third party softphone couldn't match ESI's VIP Pro Softphone, I use it everyday on my laptop and participated in the Sundance voice chat last Thursday over it.

I find that there are a lot of potential customers that do not use Outlook. Also, when I'm on the road and need to use my softphone I don't always want to have to start outlook.

But, when it comes to simply making and receiving calls on a softphone, I'm not looking for all of the added features that VIP softphone adds. I want a SIMPLE phone-like interface without Outlook that I can quickly start and dial with minimal overhead. The Express Talk product that jr is using is a good example of that type of "stripped down" application that a busy traveling exec would use when a softphone makes sense.

There is an obvious market for both applications.