Would this work for an off-premise extension?

Why don't you just put the Bria softphone on the cell phone?

That's an option too I suppose, but they'd like to have their phone with them as they'll be using it quite a bit. They have an affinity to their 1230.

Well I have a similar option I have used with my UCx and an 1140E telephone.

I bought a TP Link: 150Mbps Wireless N Nano Router TL-WR702N.

I set it up in Bridge Mode, so that the device would share the wi fi signal and turn it into a wired connection.

Any wireless ethernet extender with a built in RJ-45 jack should be able to trap the wi-fi signal of a hotel or any other wifi signal and turn it into a wired signal.

If you have an equipped laptop that allows you to share the wifi connection of the laptop via the ethernet port on the laptop, you could plug your IP Phone into the Laptop.

I currently have a MacBook Pro that uses this concept perfectly. I bought one of those Thunderbolt Etherent Adapaters with an RJ-45 connection that plugs into the Thunderbolt adapter on the Mac. Then I plug an IP Phone into the RJ-45 Thunderbolt adapter and the telephone connects perfectly to my UCx via the UCx's external IP Address.

For the Mac Here are the procedures:

1-Go to internet sharing and devices.
2-Choose Thunderbolt Adapter and allow it to share the wi-fi signal.
3-Plug the Nortel phone directly into the Mac's Thunderbolt adapter. (also don't forget your power adapter for the Nortel Phone)
4-Set the S1 IP Address/Port of your Nortel IP Phone to the external IP Address of your UCx.
5-Once connected to the internet signal, the phone should power up just like it's at the home office. Be sure you plug the laptops power supply in while the phone is in operation, because the Mac will sleep when it's in battery mode and cut off the signal to the phone.

I've never tried internet sharing with a PC laptop RJ-45 jack, but I am sure some computer genius on here could figure it out.

See some photos and a video below of me using the phone.



Joseph Sus Jr. Nortel Emetrotel Consultant

Thanks RLSButton! It sounds like what I want to accomplish is entirely possible then ... good news! I'll futz around with the setup ... I'm pretty sure I can get it working. I'm still a little hazy on the configuration side though. Could someone provide some steps to configure the 1230 IP phone and the UCx? Here's what I've done thus far:

1. On my router, I've opened up UDP Port 7000 and have it pointed to the UCx server for remote Nortel signaling.

2. I've also opened up UDP ports 10000-13999 and also have those directed to the UCx server for remote Nortel media.

3. I have NOT opened up port 5060 as I don't have any SIP phones that need remote access. If I'm providing access for just the remote Nortel users, I don't need to enable this port, right?

- - -

For the phone itself, the remote user's extension has been created, but no phone has been associated with it as of yet.

1. Should I register the phone via our LAN first and then reconfigure it for remote access, or should I register it remotely?

2. In the 1230 configuration, For S1 and S2 IP and port, should I put in my network's WAN address for the IP address? I can't put a host name in the IP field for the phone, can I? Our WAN address is dynamically assigned, so the WAN address changes occasionally. It's not a big deal as I can always ping our OpenDNS host, get the new number and put it into the phone. Port 7000 is correct right?

- - -

Is there anything specific I have to do the UCx?

Thanks everyone for the continued help!

What you did is fine - you don't need to open the SIP port (5060) - just make sure that you configure the Public IP on the Nortel Settings page (set it to the "WAN IP address").

The phones can be configured locally first and then moved to a remote location - you'd have to set S1/S2 to the LAN IP of the UCx system for the local configuration and then change S1/S2 to the WAN address (the one you entered in the Public IP field) when you move the phones to the remote site. You can save yourself the double configuration and configure the phones just for the remote operation...

Thanks ucxguy. For the Wan IP field, I'm assuming that the UCx will only respond to a number and not a hostname, is that correct? It'd be great if we could put our dyndns host in there, but I'm guessing that it has to be a number, is that right?

Just wanted to update this post with what I did, which worked like a charm! Here's what I had:

1. TP-LINK access point (TP901ND).
2. Netgear PoE switch.
3. My cell phone
4. IP Phone

I configured the access point and put it in client mode, connecting to my cell phone's ssid and password.
I then took a Cat5 cable and plugged it into the port on the access point, and the other end into the switch.
I then plugged in an IP phone configured to access the UCx from the WAN.
I kept the phone unregistered to the UCx, and used hotdesking to log the phone in to the office extension.

It worked like a charm! While I'm hopeful I can use traditional wifi, this is a good failsafe as long as there is cellular network data coverage.

Thanks everybody for the help!