SNOM 360 Softphone

Introduction

Snom offers a softphone version of its model 360 SIP phone for the Windows platform. According to the license agreement the use of the Snom Softphone is free for private use or a 2 week evaluation period. During installation leave the field where a license key could be entered empty unless you have a license.

The Snom 360 Softphone is fully functional. The only difference we could identify is the fact that it only supports voice codecs G.711u, G,711a, and GSM. The hard phone version in addition supports G.726, G.722, G.723, and G.729 codecs. Snom seems to be using the same SIP application software and the current revision of the Softphone is 5.3.

Configuration

Snom Provisioning Server

In release 3.60j Snom seemed to have pre-configured the softphone to use a Snom provisioning server at the following URL (release 5.3 we have not tested yet):

[http://provisioning.snom.com/snom360/snom360.php?mac=]{mac}

While it might be possible that in a paid version of the 360 Softphone the registration server parameter can be changed (I have not been able to try that), the free version does not allow you to make that change. This has two important consequences:

  1. Snom gets a notification everytime someone starts one of their softphones
  2. The sipX configuration server cannot be configured as the provisioning server for Snom softphones, even though the softphone uses the same profile template as the hard phone version

Manual Configuration of the Snom 360 Softphone

Manual configuration invloves creating one or several users (lines) in the sipX Configuration Server to be used with the softphone. The softphone is then configured by using its Web Portal. User name and password created in the sipX Configuration Server have to be transferred to the phone. They have to match for the phone to authenticate.

Using the Snom 360 Softphone

Unfortunately the Snom 360 Softphone user interface is unreadable. Therefore, you have to know what keys represent what function in order to use them. The diagram below might provide some help. Press the "Snom" key to open the phone's Web portal in your browser.

Snom 360 Keypad