Detailed Information 

Grandstream IP Phones

sipXecs supports the full lineup of Grandstream IP Phones. Grandstream's standards-based desktop IP phones provide many features, excellent sound quality, and offer hands-free full-duplex speakerphone

Certification Status

Grandstream phones are currently in verified status, with full certified status expected to be complete anywhere from March 2013 - May 2013

Currently known issues include:

• RFC 4235 (aka dialog events) are not currently supported, though this is being actively worked on by Grandstream engineers
• Improved Grandstream plugin for sipXecs is currently in testing phases.

Currently Verified Models

Legacy Desktop Models

Legacy Desktop Phones

Known Issues / Configuration Notes

http://www.grandstream.com/support/firmware

Notes:

Automated Configuration using the sipXecs ConfigServer

Starting with release 3.0 of sipXecs automated plug & play configuration of Grandstream phones is supported by ConfigServer (thanks to Hannu Strang for his valuable contribution).

From the sipXecs ConfigServer administration portal:

• First add a New User

• Add a New Phone and select the Grandstream phone model from the drop-down menu.
• Enter the proper serial number of the phone

• Assign a line to the phone by selecting the appropriate user
• Generate profiles (configuration files for the phone). Default parameters should result in a working setup. From within ConfigServer you can change parameters later and re-generate the profile.

• Reset the phone to factory defaults manually
• *Manually reconfigure the correct address for the TFTP server.* The phone does not pick it up through DHCP.  Press the "Menu" button, down arrow until you see "[xecsuser:6] tFtP", then enter (menu button on Budgetone) then type in the IP address of the sipXconfig machine.  If your IP address is 10.1.1.22, for example, then enter "010001001022". Alternatively, you can configure the TFTP server address using the Grandstream Web interface.
• Manually reboot the phone. The phone should now pick up the profile generated by ConfigServer and register with sipXecs
  *Note:* Automated restart of the phone from ConfigServer might not work yet even once the phone registered successfully.

*Grandstream Budgetone Configuration Management:*
ConfigServer provides comprehensive management of all the parameters of the Grandstream Budgetone phone. When using ConfigServer the built in Web server should not be used for configuration changes in order to maintain consistency as parameters generated by configServer will overwrite manual settings.

Additional Features

Call Hold and Transfer

• *Hold:* To place a call on hold press "hold". To take the call off hold press "hold" again.
• *Blind Transfer:* To transfer a call press "transfer", dial the new number and hang up.
• *Consultative Transfer:* In order to consult the other party before transferring the call press "flash", dial the new number and wait until the new party picks up. Press "transfer" to transfer the call.

Conference

Firmware 1.0.6.7 for the Budgetone phone does not support conference. Firmware release 1.0.7.11 is currently in Beta. It supports conferencing done by the phone.

Call an extension, press conference, call the 2nd extension, press conference again.

Message Waiting Indication (MWI)

Using the standard profile this feature should be enabled by default. The Grandstream Budgetone uses the backlit display as the message waiting indicator. If a message is waiting the whole display flashes blue. To pick up a message press the Message key on the dial pad or dial the voicemail extension (default: 101).

Message Waiting Indication can be configured on the Grandstream Budgetone management screen in ConfigServer under Misc Settings.

Synchroniation with a Time Server

This feature is enabled by default using the standard profile. The default NTP server used is pool.ntp.org. Make sure you configure the correct time zone under Time Settings.

Voice Codec Settings

The default profile defines the following priority list for codec selection:

This is a good selection if you want to communicate with the media server, which typically requires PCMU, and if you have bandwidth constraints for normal calls. If you often communicate with other Grandstream Budgetone phones we recommend to using the wide-band codec G.722, which means you have to move it up in the list of priority settings.

Password Settings

The default profile leaves a standard admin and user password. You might want to change this in order to secure access to the phone.

Manual Configuration and Troubleshooting

Connect to the phone's built-in Web server

The default behavior is to obtain an IP address using DHCP at power up. Discovering the phone's IP address is done as follows:

• Connect the BT-101/102 phone to the network and power it up.
• When the phone is powered up, press the menu button, then press the down arrow to scroll to the IP Address selection; press Menu again to display the IP Address of the phone.

Login to the phone's Web User Interface

Point your browser to

 http://<ip of your phone>

. Default admin password is admin.

Manually Configure the Grandstream phone to register with sipXecs

The BudgeTone BT-101/102 firmware version used in this configuration is 1.0.6.7 / Bootloader 1.0.1 / HTML-1.0.0.49 / VOC-1.0.1.0.

Manually Configure the Grandstream phone to register with Free World Dialup (FWD)

As a little digression, below the configuration to register with FWD.

 *Additional Settings:*

Selecting the Voice Codec

Grandstream BudgeTone VoIP phones and HandyTone analog telephone adaptors support G.711-uLaw, G.711-aLaw, G.722, G.723, G.726, G.728, G.729 and iLBC. The *wideband codec G.722* is only supported by BudgeTone VoIP phones. It has the same bit rate as G.711 but with twice the sampling rate (16KHz vs. 8KHz) and therefore better sound quality (better than toll quality).

By default, PCMU(G.711u) will be used. Both PCMU and PCMA will give you toll quality voice, but their bandwidth consumption is also the highest (64kbps). With G.722 you get wideband audio at the same bitrate. If your network bandwidth is low, you can choose lower bitrate codecs such as G.723 or G.729, which will give you near toll quality at much smaller bandwidth consumption (G.723 consumes 5.3/6.3kbps and G.729 consumes 8kbps).

A good choice is: G.722, PCMU, PCMA, iLBC, G.723, G.729. This will chose the wideband codec G.722 if available by the called party's phone.

*Voice Frames Per TX:* To reduce the overall Ethernet/IP/RTP overhead introduced by the 54 byte header, multiple voice frames can be packed into a single Ethernet frame. In doing so a trade-off has to be made between overall bitrate and delay. Optimizing for network bandwidth constraints, increasing the TX count may improve the overall voice quality.

If RTP packets are sent every 2.5ms (G.728, TX = 1), the total bitrate is 0.432*400 = 172.8kbps. This won't work well over the public Internet. However, if RTP packets are sent every 10ms, the total bitrate is down to 0.432*100 = 43.2kbps. If RTP packets are sent every 20ms, the total bitrate may be further down to 0.432*50=21.6kbps.

Grandstream suggests 30ms packet rate for G.723, 10ms for G.728 and 20ms for the rest of the codecs. Voice_Frames_Per_TX is then set to 1 for G.723, 4 for G.728 and 2 for the rest.

Managing Ring Tones

The Budgetone phones support up to three ring tones. Grandstream made available a tool used for converting music files (mp3, .wav, etc)
to a Grandstream music ring tone format.  The tool converts music files into PCMU (G.711A) format of up to 64KB each. The .zip file contains an executable file for Solaris and one for Linux.

The extension of the output file has to be .ring. Then rename the file output.ring to ring1.bin and the file is ready for download. Place the file in the TFTP server folder containing the firmware. The Budgetone phones will load the ring tones during the next reboot.

Firmware Upgrade

It is recommended that you upgrade to the latest firmware version.

To upgrade software, the BudgeTone-101/102 phone can be configured with a TFTP server on which the new code image is located. It is recommended that the TFTP server has either a public IP address or is on the same LAN segment with the phone.

The TFTP server can be configured via the phone's Web configuration interface. On the configuration screen Advanced Settings enter the TFTP server IP address in the designated field towards the bottom of the configuration screen. Apply changes by selecting update. Once the TFTP server is configured and the image is located in the TFTP server's root directory, reboot the phone.

The phone only contacts the TFTP server during its initial power up or reboot. If the configured TFTP server is found and a new code image is available, the phone will attempt to retrieve it. After verification of the checksum, the new code image will be stored into flash memory.

If TFTP fails for any reason (e.g., TFTP server is not responding, there are no code image files available for upgrade, or
the checksum test fails, etc), the phone will stop the TFTP process and simply boot using the existing code image.

Check successful upgrade by going to the phone's Web interface Status screen.

• Stable firmware download page
• Beta firmware download page

Using the Grandstream TFTP server

It is recommended to conduct TFTP based firmware upgrade in a controlled LAN environment if possible. For users who do not have a local TFTP server, Grandstream provides a NAT-friendly TFTP server on the public Internet. Make sure your firewall allows TFTP traffic on port 69.

Using the sipXecs TFTP server

It is recommended to use the TFTP server built into your sipXecs server already to distribute firmware updates to your Grandstream phones in a controlled and reliable way.The sipXecs TFTP server is used to manage Polycom and other phones and can be used for this purpose.

TFTP root directory: /var/sipxdata/configserver/phone/profile/tftproot on your sipXecs server

Copy the Grandstream BudgeTone firmware image into the TFTP server's root directory. For example to get Release 1.0.6.7 issue the following commands on your sipXecs host:

BETA release 1.0.7.11:

Reboot the phone. The phone does not display any messages on the display during upgrading. Use the Web interface to check what firmware release is running.

Using the sipXecs HTTP Configuration Server and Auto-Provisioning

Although it may be preferable to use the TFTP for phone configurations, some network environments do not work well with the TFTP protocol.   Specifically, when crossing network address translators (NATs) or traversing the Internet, TFTP performance can be problematic.

To address these requirements, Grandstream and SipXecs also support phone provisioning via HTTP protocol.  To use this capability (with SipXecs 4.6+) simply access the web based Grandstream Multimedia Phone Administration Interface (GXV3140 and GXV3175);  go to the Maintenance tab; and the Upgrade section and  set the following:

HTTP/HTTPS User Name :  PlcmSpIp

HTTP/HTTPS Password : PlcmSpIp

Upgrade Via : HTTP

Firmware Server Path : <SIPXSERVER>/phoneprov

Config Server Path :  <SIPXSERVER>/phoneprov

 Then save the configuration and reboot the phone.  The phone will reboot and download any firmware upgrade you have stored at the server as well as any configuration created for it at the configuration server.  If the phone was not previously provisioned in SipXecs, it will be automatically provisioned with a temporary ID.  You can then go back into the configuration and assign lines to the phone device and send the updated profiles to the phone.  The phone will restart after the new configuration has been downloaded and should render the new configuration accordingly.

Resetting to Factory Defaults

The phone can be reset to factory defaults as follows. This will erase all configuraton information.

* Find the MAC address of your phone (printed on the label on the back of the phone)
* Encode the MAC address (enter hex numbers using the keypad

e.g.   MAC: 00b8200e395  ->  0002228200333395

* Press menu on the phone and scroll down using the arrow keys to RESET-
-
* Type the encoded MAC address and hit menu to complete

The phone should now reboot.

Configuration via a Configuration Server

The Budgetone phones can be automatically configured at startup using a TFTP server.

* Configuration tool and configuration template file

The configuration file has the format cfg<mac> and its has to be in *binary* format. Grandstream provides a utility tool (Windows and Linux versions) that allows the encoding of a text based file into binary format.

Using GSUtil to Backup / Restore Budgetone Configuration

Charles Howes created a simple Linux tool called GSUtil that allows backup and restore of Grandstream Budgetone phones. It should work for the BT-101/102 Budgetone phones, as well as the HandyTone models HT-286 and HT-486, which use the same firmware as the phones.