sundance-communications.com Forums Telephony Discussion Phone & VoIP Systems Avaya - Lucent Telephones & Systems J-series phones and VPN

Now that the 96xx series phones on the IP Office have been replaced by the J-series, what are the workable solutions for remote users who want to connect these phones from home back to the office network/IP Office?

The built-in VPN client on the 9608 was great as long as you could work with the IT folks and get the VPN tunnel built correctly.

Trying to figure out the best way to tackle this scenario on the J-series phones.

With Jseries..the most secure option is to install an SBC.

BUT, you can do SIP remote worker with proper licensing. This does require the SIP ports to be opened and forwared to the IPO. If this is the option you take, i would MANDATE a 3rd party certificate and enable TLS for security.

J series in H.323 mode are not supported, but they do work just fine. They register as a 9611 and the VPN is built in.

I thought H323 only worked for R10.1, once goes to r11, was SIP only...

I restarted a test J169 phone in H323 mode, but I still do not see a VPN option in the setup menus.....?

I know current customers who are using the VPN feature, really don't want to go with the added expense of putting a client SBC at each remote employee's home just so their phone will connect. But there may not be any other option for them the way it is sounding.

I use J seriers phones with ACO, no problem

They're working just fine in H.323 mode with 11.0, although not officially supported. Haven't tested with 11.1. Need to clear the phone, change the signalling, and set the server address to where they can get the H.323 firmware. After upgrading and rebooting, clear again and program through the craft menu.

So it seems that you have to be on site to get the firmware to change, then take the phone off site to program the VPN. I cheated, and first connected to one of our hosted IPO's to get the firmware over the Internet, then cleared and programmed to connect via the VPN.

I did not have the phone connected to a working chassis. I'll connect one up to our demo system which is running R11.0 and see what happens. Thank you for the information.

For those that are keeping the phones in SIP mode, what SBC's have you found that work best at the remote sites?