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Tim Bray

Changes to Snom part codes

On 1st April 2013 ProVu will change the part codes for Snom phones.

This is because snom are now offering phones without the power supply. We need partcodes for each phone for with and without PSU. We are also taking the opportunity to make our part codes more consistent with snom’s part codes.

We also want to make it clearer whether the phone includes a power supply or not.

Old Code New Code PSU included
PVSnom300POE snom300-withPSU yes
snom300 no
PVSnom320 snom320-withPSU yes
snom320 no
PVSnom370 snom370-withPSU yes
snom370 no
snom-710 snom710-withPSU yes
snom-710-noPSU snom710 no
snom-720 snom720-withPSU yes
snom720 no
snom-760 snom760-withPSU yes
snom760 no
PVSnom821 snom821-grey-withPSU yes
PVSnom821-B snom821-blk-withPSU yes
PVSnom870 snom870-grey-withPSU yes
PVSnom870-B snom870-blk-withPSU yes

Notes

For prosys customers the old part codes will continue to work for orders placed automatically (via XML or similar). The new part codes will appear on all invoices and order confirmations.

The old part codes will be shown alongside the new ones in automatic stock feeds until 1st May 2013.

All references to part codes in the order history etc will be updated to show the new part codes.

Long term, better for everybody to change to ordering with the new codes.

Any questions or concerns, please get in touch.

Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP)

ProVu have been selling services for many years to help people deploy SIP phones. Services under our prosys brand.

We can deliver, brand, configure, set firmware and report back. We provide APIs to our customers to do this automatically.

Until recently, we called these fulfilment and provisioning services. There wasn’t an industry specific term.

But now, the term Zero Touch Provisioning seems to be more in favour throughout the industry. More people are talking about the services we offer with these words. I’m glad that the language has caught up with what we do.

Except ProVu do more. We do Zero Touch Management as well!!!

DE900 Rescue mode

If you get a gigaset DE900 stuck in rescue mode, this is what to do.

First change your computer to have an IP address of 192.168.15.2 with a 255.255.255.0 netmask. The phone will be on 192.168.15.1

Download the Firmware file
unzip

On Windows
Open a “DOS-box”
go to the DIR where the Firmware is located
TFTP -i 192.168.15.1 PUT filename.IMG

​On MAC/linux
Open a Terminal (Firmware file has to be in users home-DIR)
tftp
connect 192.168.15.1
binary
rexmt 1
timeout 60
put

Prosys Firmware upgrade

Just a quick note to draw attention to new features we have added into ProSys for Snom firmware upgrades.

Prosys is our online toolkit for ITSPs to manage SIP phones

The features are:

– automatic handling of multi step upgrades
– Support for Snom 720 and Snom 760 phones.
– Support for a different target version for a version 7 Snom and a version 8 Snom.
– Different counters and times of day for version 8 and version 7. (for counted and overnight upgrades)

As seasoned Snom users will know, sometimes upgrades are multiphase. You have to do one upgrade then another in turn. This has always been something that ProSys has just handled but did you know it can upgrade a phone all the way from version 4 to version 8 ? And do the bootloader along the way.

So why the different settings for version 7 and version 8? Snom are now shipping phones with version 8 firmware as standard. Many ITSPs have large installed bases of phones in 7.3.30. Some customers have been upgraded their own phones to version 8.something. (Where something might be a early beta)

So the outcome is to leave all the version 7 phones untouched, but makesure any phone which is on version 8 is upgraded to the best stable version.

In the long term, all phones will get upgraded, but in the meantime service providers don’t want poor early v8 firmware reflecting on badly on their service.

We don’t want to change all these phones instantly during working hours. This is where an overnight counted upgrade comes in. We set a counter for each service provider; say 10 phones. Each night we reset the counter back to 10 so that 10 phones upgrade each night.

This way any problems can be discovered and rectified for a few users.

In summary, we can leave your version 7 phones untouched, but roll up version 8 phones to a version of your choice.

If the above is of interest, please get in touch.

6am start for Raspberry Pi

So, 6am this morning. The ProVu techies were up trying to get their hand’s on a RasperryPI.

This is a new mini computer which runs Linux. They are cheap at $35. We all really excited about the launch. We all have ideas of things we want to build with the device. The educational aspect that kids can have a computer cheap enough to just play with is fantastic.

This morning, the announcement was that they had decide to use RS and Farnell for distribution. These are both huge companies. Farnell’s turnover is £990 million.

We have an account with Farnell, so thought buying would be easy.

Unfortunately, I slept in until 6.03 by which time the websites of the both distributors had gone offline. Only now at 11:59 has the Farnell website been up enough to place a pre-order for the next batch.

It is all good.

The end of pricing.provu.co.uk

We are going to switch off pricing.provu.co.uk on 22 of February.

Instead we ask people use the Price list in Prosys. This has all the same features and more.

While the old site has worked for many years, it isn’t keeping pace with our changing business. Many of our customers now get slightly better pricing because they are parts of Manufacturer schemes such as Snom SCE. Prosys is aware of these whereas the old pricing.provu.co.uk doesn’t.

We want to put an end to any confusion. We also will run one secure site for all price information.

If you are a reseller but don’t have log in details for ProSys yet, please contact us on 01484 840048.

Vega Gateways – Now in stock at ProVu

vega is back

We’ve taken stock of Vega gateways.

These are the products which were previously known as Vegastream. The whole product range has been bought by Sangoma. We are relaunching the products in the UK.

The products are all in one appliance gateways from SIP to PRI, BRI, FXS and FXO telephone connections.

You might use these for connecting a traditional PBX to SIP trunks.

On the FXS side, you can connect existing analogue lines to an modern IP pbx or hosted system.

Full details:
http://www.provu.co.uk/sangoma.html

Snom UC edition

Lync LogoUC = Unified Communications.

So the Snom300 and Snom821 UC editions are now `qualified for use with Microsoft Lync 2010`.

snom UC600Snom have also launched the UC600. A USB phone which is `optimized for Microsoft Lync`.

For full details on the announcement, see the full UC release.

If you want to place an order, contact your account manager at ProVu.

The main USP of the Snom UC edition phones is that they are a phone for Lync but also a full open standards SIP phone. This gives a few options:

  • Deploy SIP now, and upgrade to UC with Lync in the future

  • Use SIP for voice, but use Snom UC for presence. This shadow system is a very good way to migrate.

So buy the Snom UC edition to have a phone which is both a stand alone SIP phone and a UC phone for Lync. Protect your investment by buying open standards.

Phihong Midspan Explanation

Are the PhiHong Midspan units basically a switch/hub such that you can put them between a router and a set of phones? Or are they just power injection units essentially amalgamating 8, 16 or 24 channels where you have an in/out for each cable from the router on it’s way to the phone? Or something else….?

They are not a switch. They do nothing with the data. You still need a switch port to connect each power port to.

For each powered port they have an in and out socket.

in = data only to connect to the switch or router.
out = power and data to connect to IP phone or other Poe device.

When you are using the 8,16 or 24 port version you would usually need a set of short patch cables to connect all the in ports to the switch.

So why not just buy a POE switch?

1) Size. The spans aren’t very deep so will fit in most networking cabinets. Many POE switches are full depth devices

2) to power an existing switch. If you have made an investment in switches, you can add power without throwing away. For many high end managed switches, separate power can be cheaper than a powered switch to the same specification.

3) if you just want to power some ports.