Newbie hoping for insight 1

[vaoldschl]

My firm has acquired an office in Romania and I've been tasked with looking into their telephony set up. What I know is they have 4 lines and 8 sets and the sets are Optipoint 500 basic. Is there any chance there is a neat fit in the Siemens world that could be back ending that?

What I'm looking at is either ripping out what they have and putting something else in or working with the existing stuff to get them voicemail and 5-digit dialing to our other locations. I'm a Cisco/Avaya guy and Siemens is an unkown animal so any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[bellerofonte]

Hi,

I work in Italy (as Siemens HiPath engineer) and, if you're able to provide more informations, I could try to help you verifiying which Siemens's communication system your firm indirectly acquired.

Probably (deducted from optiPoint telephone set you said it has) the system could be an HiPath 3000 (or, eventually, an oldest Hicom 150E for which optiPoint's phones are still compatible) but, to be more, specific I need more infos (like software version).

Regards,
bellerofonte.

 

[donb01]

If they don't have the knowledge to find you a model number or describe it decently have them photograph they key features (of the system, not the phones!) and send them to you. You can start assuming what it is by what the box looks like.

 

[bellerofonte]

Yes, it's a very basic way to start...or I can tell them to try digit a programming code on the first digital phone of the system (generally numbered 11 or 100 in a default installation) to discover exactly which communication system they're running.

Kind regards,
Bellerofonte.

 

[vaoldschl]

What would be a code they could try from the programming set that would give insight? Thanks for your help.

 

[bellerofonte]

The workpoints with the two lowest internal station numbers (for example, 11 and 12 or 100 and 101) can be used to administer HiPath 3000 systems: normally (technical) users can access system administration by entering a (predefined and valid) user name (ID) and password (authentication code) on that phones and, obiouvsly, they should have an LCD in order to watch commands/results.

Depending on the active password concept (variable of fixed) the procedure is as follows:

(1) press *95
(2) digit the user name (ID) (if fixed password concept was used the ID is 31994 but if variable password concept was used at installation time you must know which user name the installer has defined)
(3) digit the password (authentication code)...same advice given above, password = ID code in the default mode.
(4) digit 29, then 1 and finally 1 to see the System Type
(5) eventually you can also digit 29, then 1 and finally 2 to check the Software Version of the managed communication system.
(6) by using the optiKey guide < v > buttons you can move among menus and submenus very quickly checking and, eventually, modifying values and flags (not recommended).

Another solution could be to enable the ISDN Remote Access by activation the Internal Digital Modem (always available on recent systems) but the procedure to check if it is enabled could be more difficult to explain to users that the difficulty to connect via ISDN remotely (also from foreign countries)...and, once again, you need the Administration credentials to do so.

The ISDN Remote Access could then open the door of the entire system's management by using the HiPath 3000 Manager E management tool provided by Siemens to Hicom/HiPath qualified engineers. It manages also the old Hicom communication platforms.

Regards,
bellerofonte.

 

[vaoldschl]

Super cool, thanks. The system turns out to be a HiPath 1120, looks like V6 maybe? Working across an ocean so I'm sure I'm missing something. Any easy way to find docs on that online? I'll of course look on my own but if anybody has info on a good site I would be grateful.

 

[donb01]

Even though it probably doesn't have what you want, I find this site to contain a wealth of useful information, and it does have the Hicom 300 programming manual on it.

http://web1.egvrn.net/tokata/

 

[bellerofonte]

Better to check first the Siemens Enterprise Wiki public site:

http://wiki.siemens-enterprise.com/index.php/HiPath_1200

at least you can find quite fresh and accurate first hand informations directly from Siemens (I contributed too about some new and advanced HiPath products as one of Wiki's SysOps).

Then, if you need other deeply technical informations about this little HiPath 1220...let me know and I will provide it to you.

Best regards,
bellerofonte.

 

[vaoldschl]

Thanks for the links. It is the 1120 not the 1220 which answers my original questions. The 1220 would stay in place because it comes equipped with internal voice mail and looks like it might be able to handle SIP trunking. With the 1120 it looks like I would need to integrate external voice mail and I can't find anything about SIP (granted I didn't look very far after I got the vm data). I think that probably, just to save the expense of the phones we're going to move up to the HiPath 3000 system. Thanks again for all your help.

 

[bellerofonte]

Sorry for the mistake about 1120/1220...no matter, on the wiki you found both as well.
About the HiPath and SIP Trunking please consider to order an HiPath 3000 V7 R5 (with HG1500 V3.0 for HiPath 3000 V7) at least.

Regarding the SIP Trunking...remember that HiPath 3000 systems (those of which are IP enabled via the HG1500 IP Gateway module) need to register to an external SIP Proxy to perform a SIP Trunking (in the same way you can register an Asterisk/SipXexchange to a SIP Internet Telephony Service Provider to gain access to PSTN via VoIP) otherwise they are only able to register the SIP IP Phones acting as SIP Proxy/SIP Registrar for them.

Regards,
bellerofonte.

P.S.
The HiPath 1220 is not able to handle IP phone nor SIP Trunking...it has not IP capabilities despite the fact it has a very entry 2 channels Voice Mail submodule.