Mitel 5207 IP phones on MiVB 9 and 10

[AH64Armament]

As many know, Mitel no longer supports the 52xx telephones.
However, the 5220's, 5215's, 5212's and 5224's are functional on MiVB 9 and 10 - I have several sites that still have these phones running in low to medium use areas.

The 5207's are unfortunately a problem on MiVB 9 and 10 as the firmware has been removed from the TFTP folder. And the phones fail to boot.

I had a similar issue about 14 years ago with some 5215's that failed to work after an upgrade to 3300 version 8 or 9 from version 7. Mitel had me gather the files specific to that set type from a working system on the previous version and load them to the TFTP folder inside the upgraded system. This resolved the issue that we were having.

I found a "Mitel 5300 firmware" file a while back on Mitel's downloads - and used it on a similar issue that the wanted me to put the 5330 firmware to another system.

I made the 5300 firmware folder available to my PC's TFTP server and static assigned the phone to use that TFTP server to get the files.
The phone grabbed 2 files - ipp5005.bin and ipp5005boot.bin.

My test controller is running MiVB 10.0.1.18 and the 5207 phone fails to boot from it as it was missing these files.

Using Filezilla, I logged into this test system to the /var/mitel-phoneloads/tftp folder and added those two files.

I removed the static settings from my 5207 phone and let it boot up.
It came up! During boot, it downloaded these two files and said that it did not need to upgrade... but it did come up. I pinned it out and all my testing is successful.

I'm upgrading the test phone system to 10.1.0.27 and will test this phone to see if it works after or if I need to load that firmware again.

 

[AH64Armament]

I upgraded my test system to 10.1.0.27.
The 5207 telephone failed to boot.
I once again put the two files into the system and the phone came up.

So as a workaround to accommodate these outdated phones, I have to say this works.

I have made calls to another phone and the audio is fine. I don't have any trunks on this system, so I can't tell how well that will work. Calls to voicemail do work, so I expect trunk calls will also work.

 

[Lundah]

That's a heck of an oversight on Mitel's part to still allow the phone to be programmed in software, but not include the firmware required to for the phone to actually work.

 

[AH64Armament]

I agree. The still show the 5230, 5235 and Navigator phones - all of which do not work on anything higher than MCD 6 or 7.

The 5235 will work for telephone calls, but the display will not populate.
The Navigator required an app on your PC, and that app used the same info that operates the 5235 (so I'm told).

The 5010 and IP Paging unit are one in the same - You can use the 5010 and static assign everything, but the paging unit doesn't have a keypad or display, so it won't work unless you off-load the DHCP service to something that supports the legacy options 128, 129, 130,etc.
And Mitel doesn't have a suitable replacement item for the IP Paging unit. So to actually use something that's usable, you need to crack a supported phone and tap into the speaker to the overhead paging. If you do this, be sure to disable the microphone and strap down the handset to keep people from using it.

 

[TheMitelGuy]

Season greetings everyone!

It's been a LONG time since I posted here, but I thought I would come say "hello"... Hello! I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season.

In terms of (almost) any set older than the 5300 series, Mitel did issue a bulletin on the knowledgebase. In that bulletin, Mitel said they had spent a long time supporting sets older than the 5300 series. At some point they need to move on. I believe they said something to the affect that the 5200 series were supported for almost two decades (I think just shy of that). Mitel went on to say they would "no longer support sets older than the 5300 series," however customers, if they want too and they can get the sets to work, will work on MiVB. They asked partners to not call for support on these sets, as Mitel will only be able to offer minimum support, if any support at all (they said it depends on the problem). They talked about how they would not be updating the firmware for sets from the 5200 or 5100 series. It was kind of a funny bulletin in that Mitel was saying "don't call us for support, but if you can get it to work, good for you."

I know we have two 5235s in the office that are working, however the soft keys ("softkeys"??? one word??) and the programmable keys will not populate any text. I have a 5220 on the wall in the electrical room with a pair going from the phone's speaker to our paging infrastructure. Works like we would expect.

You know, this makes me think of the 5140/5240. Those were the days. When Mitel made interesting stuff that people just liked.

MitelGuy

 

[AH64Armament]

I finally did an upgrade on the one site in question - took it from 8.x to 9.4, then upgraded to 10.1. Once upgraded, I side-loaded the firmware in question and the two phones that I was concerned with are running - one is a 5201 and the other is a 5207.

I have advised the site that if these phones stop working, they will need to be replaced with a newer set.

 

[TheMitelGuy]

Season greetings everyone!

It's been a LONG time since I posted here, but I thought I would come say "hello"... Hello! I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season.

In terms of (almost) any set older than the 5300 series, Mitel did issue a bulletin on the knowledgebase. In that bulletin, Mitel said they had spent a long time supporting sets older than the 5300 series. At some point they need to move on. I believe they said something to the affect that the 5200 series were supported for almost two decades (I think just shy of that). Mitel went on to say they would "no longer support sets older than the 5300 series," however customers, if they want too and they can get the sets to work, will work on MiVB. They asked partners to not call for support on these sets, as Mitel will only be able to offer minimum support, if any support at all (they said it depends on the problem). They talked about how they would not be updating the firmware for sets from the 5200 or 5100 series. It was kind of a funny bulletin in that Mitel was saying "don't call us for support, but if you can get it to work, good for you."

I know we have two 5235s in the office that are working, however the soft keys ("softkeys"??? one word??) and the programmable keys will not populate any text. I have a 5220 on the wall in the electrical room with a pair going from the phone's speaker to our paging infrastructure. Works like we would expect.

You know, this makes me think of the 5140/5240. Those were the days. When Mitel made interesting stuff that people just liked.

MitelGuy

I have the exact same situation with out 5235s. Everything works except for the softkeys. Wish I could find a way to make the softkeys work.

 

[AH64Armament]

The 5235's and Navigator both quit working many versions ago. We were able to get the 5235 working, but as you indicated, the screen never populated. Since I only had one of these at our office with no other customers with them, we simply replaced the phone with a newer 53xx phone.

The Navigator, the user continues to use it as a speaker for his workstation, but not as a phone.

With the info above, you might be able to find the older firmware for the 5235 and add that to the TFTP folder in the phone system to make it work.