IP Deskphone 9608/9611G/9621G/9641G 8

[SloTCMS30]

All,

Here is the latest update (includes SP2)... The 9611G has been pretty reliable since the application of the SP. However, the 9621G (touchscreen) is JUNK!!! We had to replace 4 out of the 10 we piloted due to screen failures. One of the replacements has also started showing bad pixels again...

Avaya, it's called QC for a reason.

I'm glad I didn't deploy these to the Exec's... Of course, they want to know why Tech Services has them and they don't...

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

- Epicurus

 

[ggilkison]

New Avaya 96X1 Service Pack 3 - 3/28/2011

Avaya one-X® Deskphone H.323 Release 6.0 SP3 is supported on the 9608, 9611G, 9621G and 9641G IP Deskphones only.

Avaya strongly encourages all customers to upgrade to SP3 even if you are not experiencing any issues.

It will not load or operate on any other models. The Avaya 9620L/9620C/9630G/9640/9640G/9650/9650C/9670G IP Deskphones are unaffected.

http://support.avaya.com/css/appmanager/public/support/Downloads/P0553/H.323 6.0.x

 

[avayasmith]

SP3 did NOT fix the "lock up" issue with my 9608 phones. We use group-page heavily, and phones are still locking up left and right. We have 9650's in the same environment that have no issues.

 

[IPOthermia]

It appears there are two different lock up issues.

The one where the phones lock up on their own for no apparent reason appears to be better with SP3 (My users agree and so does my error log)

The one where paging locks up random phones still exists in SP3 (Avaya confirmed this to me) They are working on a fix. No specific date has been given. Considering past performance they'd miss a date if they provided one anyway.

Thanks....

 

[IPOthermia]

May 4th is the new anticipated release date for SP4 to fix the group-page issue. We are still seeing issues with a lockup here and there. I have noticed that hitting the speaker button doesn't always get a dial tone. Picking up the handset following this event does get a dial tone and then the speaker button works normally again.

Updating firmware over MPLS at 1.544 Mbps is a problem since this firmware is so huge. It acts like there is something that times out due to the file transfer taking to long. I find that I can only update one phone at a time over MPLS. Way to go AVAYA.

When in SLS the 9608 phones cannot break dial tone to make a call.

Thanks for any input or sharing of your experiences with these phones.

 

[jim8048]

Regarding "I find that I can only update one phone at a time over MPLS", in my experience it's not quite that bad. However they do impressively fail when you try to update too many phones at once.

* The info below is based on what I saw during my last 9608 firmware upgrade over a private MPLS network:
o I was upgrading 9608s to patch 6.014c (upgrade from 6.0 sp3) which required the phones to download two files:
o S96x1_UKR_V7r02_V7r02 (22MB)
o S9608_11HALBR6_0_14c_V452.tar (22MB)
* The general rule of thumb I came up with is that you can only simultaneously update 1.25 phones for every 1 Mb of bandwidth the site has.
* If the phone can't download the file quick enough it simply quits and reboots with its old firmware.
* For example with 20Mb of bandwidth we can upgrade ~25 phones at once.
* With a 3Mb connection I could only upgrade 4 at once (so obviously my math isn't exact, you can upgrade a little more than 1.25 phones per Mb).
* If you try to exceed this rule then you'll be lucky to have any phones upgrade. For example I tried updating 5 phones simultaneously over a 3Mb connection four times. On three of the tries no phones got upgraded. On one of the tries 1 phone got upgraded. I.e. it doesn't pay to try to break the golden 1.25 phones/Mb rule.
* Note that the 1.25 phones/Mb is a limitation of the phones themselves, not the MVIPtel server. I hit the same download limit when using an Apache web server on Linux as the firmware server.

 

[avayasmith]

I just tried SP4, and before I could get to testing I noticed all my feature buttons have moved off of the 1st screen and onto the 2nd screen. Are you kidding me Avaya?!?!?

i prefer clarity to agreement - dennis prager

 

[jim8048]

By SP4 do you mean 6.015b as described here:

https://support.avaya.com/css/P8/documents/100134733

I haven't been able to get it downloaded from here:
ftp://ftp.avaya.com/incoming/Up1cku9/AvayaT4APP/IPT/96x1PatchesAndSoftware/R6.0xx/IPT96x1_R6.015b.zip

Where did you get it?

 

[avayasmith]

jim8048, you are correct, I am referring to 6.015b. And the link you posted took me right to the correct files, so there's an issue with your browser security settings most likely. You do have the correct address there....

i prefer clarity to agreement - dennis prager

 

[avayasmith]

i found that if i use the newest settings file with sp4, i lose my feature buttons on page 1. but if i revert back to my old 2009 settings file and load sp4, my feature buttons are fine. i whined too soon. now off to testing sp4!

i prefer clarity to agreement - dennis prager

 

[Mitch672]

The file appears to already have been taken down, IE, Opera and Firefox all can't find the file. AVAYA using their customers again to beta test no doubt.

Can I ask WHY anyone would try to update IP phone firmware over a slow connection? You should have an LSP or a local fileserver at these remote locations, that you update, and the firmware should come from the local LAN then. It's never been a great idea to upgrade firmware over a WAN.



Mitch

AVAYA Certified Expert

 

[IPOthermia]

Hi Mitch.

MPLS at 1.544 isn't exactly slow. But it is a far from 100M Ethernet. I have sites that have 4 to 7 phones and enough traffice to warrant MPLS, but they are too small for and LSP or a local server to host MV_IPtel for example. Because they are in another state from me, I can't exactly drive over with my laptop and be the onsite file server either.

In a perfect world I wouldn't have to update IP Phones over a T1, and in fact, I wouldn't have to update IP phone because the firmware would be right the first time. Lets all cheer for SP4, and SP5 and SP6.....


Thanks....

 

[jim8048]

Regarding "It's never been a great idea to upgrade firmware over a WAN." I won't argue with that, but sometimes it's the best idea. Other times it's just the easiest idea.

To give you one example, upgrading firmware on one file server vs. dozens or hundreds of file servers is certainly easier. Whether or not it's better depends on many variables (time, resources, money, etc.).

IMHO there's rarely one "best" indisputable way to do something in IT (or life in general really). Almost any solution is a compromise of some sort.

 

[IPOthermia]

I agree with jim8048.

My complaint about AVAYA in this regard was that they made the firmware 10 Times larger. Thanks for stressing my network more and requiring me to involve other resources and or time to do this administration.

I am beginning to doubt they will get the 9608 phones to work properly.

 

[Mitch672]

IPOthermia, have patience, this happend with the original 96XX firmware as well. Now that AVAYA is owned by Vulture Capitials, they no longer seem to do ANY regression testing, or really much of any testing at all, and seem to leave it to their clients/customers to "verify". This is why you usually want to be at least one firmware release back, its never a good idea to "jump" on the latest firmware or patch from AVAYA these days, as it has about a %50/%50 chance of being recalled/removed, due to massive bugs.

BTW, this is also why I suggested a local fileserver, you can even use someones PC at the site, for 5 or 6 phones, its not much of a problem, and you could RDP to it or use any of the remote access methods to update it (such as "LogMeIn", "GoToMyPC", etc). Also, by using a local server, you can "customize" each location more easily, and of course remove the traffic from your WAN during these updates.

as far as not installing LSPs, we would never recomend IP Phones by themselves, you can get in real trouble (legal & monetary due to the lawsuit), if someone needs to dial "911", and you have no local POTS lines on a media gateway to send the correct phone # (location), for the emergency services to get to the location.

You will only have to be sued by the family of one of your (now deceased, due to E911 personal showing up at the wrong office) employees once to understand what I am talking about.




Mitch

AVAYA Certified Expert

 

[avayasmith]

Just because they don't have an LSP, doesn't mean they don't have a gateway with trunks.

i prefer clarity to agreement - dennis prager

 

[Mitch672]

they generally go together. customers who cheap out on the LSP, usually say "we don't need a local gateway with local POTS lines"

or even worse, they get a local gateway, and the bean counters cancel the POTS lines.

Just my experience.



Mitch

AVAYA Certified Expert

 

[IPOthermia]

For those who are interested:

The 9608 Phones currently do not function properly in Standard Local Survivable mode - aka SLS. They will not break dial tone. In other words, dial as many digits as you like, you'll still be hearing dial tone when you are done. Service Pack 4 is due out in June.

It has been almost one year now since the first 9608 crossed my desk briefly. Unfortunately its visit was too short for me to test it at any length. Marketing had to show it off to customers.

The implementation I am currently doing is trying to leverage benefits such as SLS, single point of administration and other cost savings measures. We anticipate a fairly quick ROI just based on the saving in carrier expenses. A number of ridiculously priced and lightly used T1's have been eliminated.

All gateways have at least two analog trunks of their own that are independent of the T1's that deliver the bulk of the voice traffic. The data requirements of each site warrant that all sites are connected via a robust MPLS network regardless of the number of phones at each site.

Regarding LSP's our consideration was as follows - We have some sites with as few as 3 to 5 phones. It didn't make sense to spend the price of an LSP for every location of this size. After all, the LSP might never be needed or only needed for a few minutes a year. We have already had good success with SLS and older models of IP phones. Our experience is that this is just as effective at calling 911 during an MPLS outage as an LSP. Also, we do have LSP's, just not everywhere.

In short an LSP can be very expensive insurance. What has failed us in this case is that AVAYA has released the newest class of phones without them being ready to do features like SLS. Not until we tested during the implementation do we discover we purchased a product doesn't fully meet our requirements.

So if we are at fault, what did we do wrong and how do we fix it?
Unfortunately answers like 'never buy AVAYA again', and 'Shouldn't have bought AVAYA in the firt place' are not practical solutions considering our long standing investment in AVAYA equipment. Our research into TCO back in 2007 revealed AVAYA as the best option for our organization when compared to the TCO forecast of competitors like Cisco.

Therefore we are holding AVAYA's feet to the fire as much as possible and discussing issues like this in a public forum so that others can be informed and have an opportunity to hold AVAYA to higher standards also.

 

[TDMorIP]

while were at it lets also point out the Voice Dialing Feature has been removed with the new 9600s. I already got burnt on that one.

 

[IPOthermia]

Good News if you expect to rely SLS with your 96x1 Phones:

Service Pack 4 for version 6 of the H323 phones (9608, 9611, 9621 and 9641) allows for these phones to work in SLS mode - aka Standard Local Survivability. I have tested this and it does work. Prior Service Packs DO NOT WORK in SLS.

Thanks....