96xx phones and Cisco 3550 PoE

[randyb19]

Is anyone running their 96xx phones on a Cisco 3550 PoE switch? If so, have you experience any power/rebooting issues? My site in question was installed without any issues. Now, 6 months later, some of the 3550s at the location lost power and the phones power cycled. The phones now get caught up in a looping reboot where they won't get past the 'Avaya One-X' screen. I have tried putting multiple versions of firmware on a phone to correct the issue, but this has not worked. What has worked is issuing a command on the individual switch ports "power inline delay shutdown 10 initial 60" and the problem goes away. Networking does not like to use this command as they feel it may harm the switch.

So, of course networking feels it my issue since the phones were working at install and now they are not. But, nothing has changed on the phones since install. They are running the same firmware (3.101S) and have not been upgraded to 3.102S.

 

[PBXTech]

Doesn't the 3550 come with a pre-802.3af Cisco PoE standard that only works with Cisco devices?
You may need to upgrade the Cisco or have some sort of inline power brick at the phone. Or to completely not use the PoE of the Cisco for any of your phones, try an Avaya PoE Injector PDU (1152A1).

 

[randyb19]

I was hoping to not have to go down the road of using a PDU. This site has seven floors and I think I only have four units lying around. But, yo are right that 3550 is the model that only plays nice with its own phones.

Since I don't Cisco too well, I know that our 3550s are not running the latest IOS. Not sure if updating to the latest would make any difference.

 

[PBXTech]

I don't think there is a software/firmare upgrade to get the 3550 to the actual standard. End of sale was 2006, and end of life was a couple of months ago. Sorry for the bad news.
Data folks don't take kindly to the phone guy telling them that their equipment is old and won't work, especially if it is a Cisco data shop and the phone guy is Avaya.
If saying you have '4 units' lying around, you mean 4 Avaya VoIP phones just get 4 power bricks that inject the voltage locally to the phones.

http://support.avaya.com/elmodocs2/...roductdescription/ip_phones/power_options.htm

 

[randyb19]

Sorry, 4 PDUs. There's about 150 phones in the building. Luckily a few floors have 3560 switches.

Thanks for the input.

 

[RobFromZIonsNOC]

RandyB,
I tried to search for a name that was less obvious than my real name. Did i succeed?


As was mentioned the 3550 is pre IEEE 802.3af and will not play well without the delay command specified above. No work around for it. The latest IOS release does not specifically address any issues related to bringing the device to code.

Drop the avaya and get with Cisco. Try a name less conspicuous next time. Hugs and kisses RandyB. See you tomorrow.

 

[PBXTech]

Rob, I think it would be much more economically sound if the data folks would simply spend some money and upgrade 4 switches rather than do a complete purchase of a new phone system ('drop the Avaya and get with Cisco').
We all know that a phone system is a phone system. It doesn't matter what vendor. They pretty much do and have the same things. If you want all one vendor, go with Cisco. If you want the premier call center environment, go with Avaya. If you want something cheaper, all the rest are out there.

'Knows enough to be dangerous. Wait... make that really dangerous.'

 

[randyb19]

Sorry Tech,

'Rob' is in my NOC here and has been assisting me with the issue at hand. His comments are purely to antagonize me. BUT, he has been a big help in assisting me in trying to find a workaround.

We tried switching pins 3 & 4 on a data cable to see if that would help (its something Tier 3 suggested), but it did not work.

Avaya has stated that they are going to take this to Tier 4 and open a TAC case with Cisco.

 

[Maya97]

Has anyone found a fix for this? We have a site that continuously has this problem. Once the switch has a hiccup the phones will not register. I changed the vlantest to 500 to see if that would help but it doesn't. I even have the LLDP working properly for the phones to register to the correct vlan, but the phones will just time out. We have to physically reset the phones inorder to work. We are using the 9600 series phones at this location.

 

[randyb19]

Not yet, but Avaya is working on the problem for me and last I was told they were close to a solution. I'll post as soon as I hear back.

 

[zjo]

Hi, which phones are they?

There is an issue with the power consumption for the 9620L

the cisco switch shuts the power after 30 seconds.

You have to put in:

no lldp tlv-select power-management
no lldp med-tlv-select power-management

in the cisco switches. It worked for us.

 

[meneerB]

we also use avaya, and cisco and 3550 and 3560.
what I do not understand is that you even started using avaya on non-poe standard switches, in a production envirnment.

but it is strange it worked and i'm curious if you can fix it.
nevertheless, I think 'Rob from the noc' has no choice then replace them.

ps. supprising to me is that avaya and cisco both put effort in a non-supported poe standard case!