Build phones with out MAC?? 1

[Oldtimephoneguy]

Good day. We've been put "under the gun? and have to build about 175 CCM phones. We need to get started on this now but won't have the phones for 2 or 3 weeks. Can the phones be built without knowing the MAC Address? Or can we use a ficticious address? Any work around?
Thank you!

Frank. City of Cape Coral, Florida

 

[Iwontremember]

you can use a bar code reader, although I personaly never have, maybe your vendor can explain it better.

Hope this helps.

 

[Oldtimephoneguy]

Thanks but we won't know the MAC address until we get the phones in. Can we build the phones without the MAC? Or is there a "generic" MAC we can use?


Frank. City of Cape Coral, Florida

 

[pndscm]

Use any aphla-numeric 12 digit number as long as the alpha are A-F and each one is unique.
I peronally would use 9 'A's' and then the last three digits would be from 001 to 175.
If you use BAT to put them in, it will have the option of creating dummy MAC's for you.

 

[Iwontremember]

i saw the bar coder in action 2 years ago and the admins told me they could enter 200 phones in one hour. so if you could get more info on the bar code you could have this done very quickly. i do know they had everything setup before hand 'cept the mac.

Hope this helps.

 

[pndscm]

I've used BAR Code readers and they work GREAT. You can get a good wireless one for around $200 or maybe less now.

If the phone case labels aren't too damaged in shipping or some idiot doesn't put a shipping label over them, you don't even have to open the case to get the 5 MAC addresses inside.
I always used the BC reader to put the MAC's in my spreadsheet so I could copy them into BAT.

 

[DallasBPF]

Don't even really need a wireless one, I have a wired USB one I keep with me for that exact reason. Wouldn't have minded the wireless one, but the funds came out of my pocket, so I got what I was able to at that point.

As for the original post, just do as pndscm suggested and you will be fine. Just document what is what so that you can fix it a lot easier later on when you get the phones in.

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Dallas, Texas
Telecommunications Tech
CCVP, CCNA, Net+

CCNP in the works