sundance-communications.com/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX Cisco Telephones and Systems Does Cisco system handle 3rd party SIP phones?

My questions is exactly as above: can the Cisco phone system handle (run) non-cisco, 3rd party SIP phones? I have a new branch office opening soon in Europe, and for a small office like that, our IT dept decided to go with Cisco phone system. But then the designer goes "those phones don't go with my design", and she has more say than the IT dept in this question. So me being the phone expert (I manage a different brand of system and never worked with cisco) got landed with the job: find a nicer phone that works with cisco. So all I need to know is can I go out shipping any 3rd party SIP phones?

If it was me i would tell them functionality is far more important than looks and have them over ride the designer.

Well that's a first, in a business environment. I've had it happen in a large house, but never in a business. I agree with upstateny.

What version of "Cisco phone system" are you using? The large-scale CallManager will handle 3rd party SIP phones; I would assume smaller versions would too. You may give up features or ease of use, though.

Justin

If the tail is wagging the dog---then just let the designer pick out what kind of phones and phone system he/she wants and then you put it in. It's up to you, then to learn the new system (whatever it may be). If you have to go through training, and purchase demo units, or go through other hoops---well that's the way the designer wants it. If the system doesn't work good--well, that the way the designer wants. What's the problem??

Both Call Manager and Call Manager Express will support 3rd party SIP phones. However you are going to have to manually provision each phone, you may not end up all phone features working, and there is not going to be any support from Cisco. Add the fact that this office is in Europe and you are not this is a recipe for disaster.

If you are stuck with a Cisco system, send the designer to the Cisco page with the entire phone lineup. They might have something the designer likes better than the traditional green Cisco phone.

Sip is Sip, but as rcsinfo stated, you will have to go through extra steps to make them work and you may lose some features or functionality.

Might want to read this Dutch.. SIP and SCCP (Cisco) are two different beasts.

https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-sip-and-vs-sccp/

If the system supports 3rd party SIP phones then it would require a license to use open SIP protocol. Very limited feature set...make a call, take a call, transfer, etc.

as I said, sip is sip, and you will lose features/functionality.

*When compare the features offered by SIP phones against the SCCP phones, latter has more features supported.*

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