Converting an Avaya 4610SW IP corporate business phone to a home voip sip phone to work as a stand alone phone.

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Long are the days since I remember using MSN Messenger to talk and chat with friends to make calls to my friends over seas in the caribbean and italy.  I remember that was the cheapest way and then something neat came out you could use a paid service to call regular phones right over the internet.  This was before Skype and in Latin America Msn Messenger was the norm.  Net2phone came out with this technology and it got integrated into msn messenger.  

Anyways a lot has changed Skype , Vonage, Avaya, Net2phone, even Cisco had their ATAs.
Back them the PBX was the office telephone system which cost companies a lot of money and the workforce dedicated to it.

Since then companies have migrated to VOIP.   And update their phone systems and update them.  Well I got my hands on a end of life IP phone.  The Avaya 4610SW IP phone.   
Well in this tech tip I am going to attempt to convert one of these phones that are used in the workplace to be used in my home small business.

So far I discovered some things.  The phone I got was brand new in the box and I've used other cheaper IP phones and ATA Gateways and they all came with power supplies but this one didn't hu!! ??.  Well in my techy and wireless days I've heard of POE (Power over Ethernet) so I figured well I got find out if this is it and I found this diagram

So luckily I got my hands on one of these "PowerDsine 6548 Power over Ethernet Midspan"  

How you ask ? well let's say I get a lot of old end of life equipment to play with.

Well I got the phone hooked up to the network by connecting it to the front ethernet ports and the other back directly connected to my Belkin Router.  And boom it started powering up.  The screen came up and it said DHCP and "* to program" .

So I did a few google searches and came up with something that said the phone was waiting for an IP from a specific DHCP server that you run or their Avaya branded IP PBX well I don't have that so I hit * to program it. 

I read this 

https://downloads.avaya.com/elmodocs2/ip_phones/r2_7/output/233128_5/install0215.html  about how to change the phone from H.323 (The PBX IP corporate expensive type protocol) to SIP (the people cheap easy home small business protocol).  Then I followed this:

https://downloads.avaya.com/elmodocs2/ip_phones/r2_7/output/233128_5/install0323.html it showed how to actually change from h323 to SIP.

I am at this stage now.  I will update my next moves.  It will be to connect this phone directly to an SIP provider like callcentric or any other sip based voip provider.

Currently reading this from the voip-info.org website which leads me to believe this phone will only work with a asterisk pbx system:

Avaya 4602 configuration

How to Configure an Avaya 4602

First Step, Updating Firmware

• Go to Avaya's website and download the latest SIP firmware. http://support.avaya.com/japple/css/japple?PAGE=ProductArea&temp.productID=107755&temp.bucketID=108025
  • If you are using the phone with Asterisk, download the file with the 46xxSIP prefix
  • Avaya also has a TFTP server available for download
  • Also, make sure you download the 46xxsettings.txt file. The phone will request this file. Only the first two fields in the file apply to the 4602
• Upack the files into a directory and point the TFTP server to that directory.
  • When the phone boots, it will contact the TFTP server and request the 46xxupgrade.scr and start the upgrade process.
  • After the initial upgrade process is conpleted, it will request configuration and additional update files from an HTTP server.
• Turn on the phone.
  • The phone will download 3 different update files and will reboot 3 times.

Each time the phone boots, it will request 2 configuration files. sip_4602D01A.txt and sip_<mac address>.txt. These files can contain all of the configuration information the phone needs to connect with an Asterisk server. It should also be noted that the mac address specific configuration file overrides the model specific configuration file.

Configuring an Avaya 4602 With Text Files

• Before you do an upgrade to the phone, the phone will request update and configuration files from a TFTP server.
• After you finish upgrading the phone, it will request configuration files from an HTTP server.
• On boot, the first configuration file the phone requests will be a model specific text file. Mine requested sip_4602D01A.txt. This text file should contain at very least the name of the application and boot firmware files. If the name of the firmware file is different in the configuration file than in the phone then the phone will request the new firmware file.
  • This is an issue for people updating from the two July firmware releases from Avaya. They have the same file names and therefore if you attempt to upgrade first to the earlier firmware and then to the one released later, the phone will not request the new firmware file. You will have to rename the newer firmware file and then edit the sip_4602D01A.txtconfiguration file to reflect the new firmware file names.
• The next file the phone requests, assuming you are not updating firmware, will be the sip_<mac address>.txt. This configuration file has the exact same format and settings as the sip_4602D01A.txt file. This file also overrides the configuration settings contained in the sip_4602D01A.txt file.

Configuring the Phone Via a Web Browser

• NOTE: The configuration files override and settings made through a web browser
• Open a web browser and enter in the phone's ip address
  • The default username is admin and the default password is barney.

Configuring SIP

• The Avaya 4602 does NOT support STUN.
• Configuring the Avaya 4602 for SIP is pretty straight forward.

Troubleshooting

My phone hangs at "Contacting HTTP Server" while performing a firmware update

Either your phone cannot download the sip_4602D01A.txt file (in which case it will request an appsip.ebin application file) or it cannot download the correct boot and application firmware files.

My phone fails to register with Asterisk

This can be caused by a NULL or otherwise invalid entry in the SIP Proxy field. Other NULL entries could also possibly trigger this. Run sip debug and if you see several registration requests to confirm that this is the issue.

My phone registers with asterisk, but when I dial it does not send the commands to Asterisk

When configuring the phone and NOT using a proxy, you must put the address of the Asterisk server in the SIP Proxy field or it will be unable to dial.

Found an interesting guide from Avaya on how to configure the Avaya ip phones with Asterisk Business Edition PBX here is the link : PDF file

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