Overhead paging-Local and Remote

[doom1701]

First post for me--we're going to start an Allworx rollout next week.

We're going to be doing a mix of locations with 48x servers and locations with just phones connected to the WAN hanging off of a remote 48x. We've got overhead paging, typically with either a Valcom 2001A or 2003A paging adapter, at both types of locations. The 200xA plugs into either a dedicated paging port (which I don't think the 48x has) or a CO/FXO port. Since we're going all SIP, we'll have FXO ports at the 48x locations that I'm assuming I can make use of, but I'm curious if anyone has.

For the remote sites, I've been thinking about a Linksys SPA3000, which has an FXS and an FXO port, and my hope is that those can be setup like the Allworx analog adapters (that are about 10x the price). Has anyone done a remote FXO port using either the Allworx branded adapter or a 3rd party adapter?

[doom1701]

This thread has a lot of views and no answers, so I thought I'd provide what I learned. Hopefully others can make use of it. This was written for one of our installers (we put two 48x's in this week), in case the wording seems strange.

[b]Setting up Paging through a Valcom V-200x Paging adapter and a SIP phone system[/b]

Other paging adapters may also work in the same way; the important thing is that they can be connected to an FXO port on a phone system. The Valcom units support connectivity to either a paging port (the paging port provides power, but only when active) or to an FXO port (the Valcom is switched to provide power to the line--all units that I've seen have a switch near the top that should be pushed Up).

I am writing this before hooking a speaker up to the paging adapter that I have; I hope to get ahold of a speaker early next week to find out if this works for sure. The paging adapter is clicking, so I know that it is picking up the line--that, to me, is the critical part.

The hardware required for this is a Linksys SPA-3000 or SPA-3102. The only difference between the two is that the 3102 has a built in router. I'm not a fan of built in routers, so my first step was to semi-disable it:

1. Plug a computer directly into the LAN port of the SPA
2. Sign into the web page for the SPA (factory default is http://192.168.0.1)
3. If a link exists for "Admin Login" on the right side of the screen, click it to go into Administrator mode.
4. If "Advanced" is linked on the far right, click it to go into Advanced configuration mode.
5. Click the Router main tab, then the WAN Setup secondary tab
6. Change the Remote Management: Enable WAN Server setting to "Yes". Click "Submit All Changes" at the bottom of the screen.

(You can also do this from a phone plugged into the phone port of the SPA; see this site: http://www.callcentric.com/support/devi ... ys/spa3102 )

This allows you to plug the "Internet" port into the internal network and still manage it. Plugging in the LAN port is a pain because it has to have a static IP address, you need to turn off the internal DHCP server, etc. So, once this configuration is done, stick some tape over the LAN port and plug it in using the Internet port.

Now for the actual configuration. There are two things to configure--the SIP server (the phone system) and the SPA. Start with the SIP Server. This is going to be based on the Allworx setup that we did this week.

Setup a Handset; choose to add a new SIP Handset, enter the appropriate info, and choose Generic SIP as the model. You'll need to manually set a logon ID and password. The allworx then automatically assigns a User ID (*5xxx).

Next, setup the SPA to connect as this handset:

1. Connect to the SPA using the address assigned to it by the site's DHCP server (or by plugging in a phone and using the steps at the Callcentric.com site above)
2. Make sure you are in Admin Login mode and Advanced configuration mode as detailed in steps 3 and 4 above.
3. Click the Voice main tab, and then the PSTN Line secondary tab.
4. Scroll to the "Proxy and Registration" section.
5. Enter the address of the SIP Server in the "Proxy" field
6. Go to the Subscriber Information section
7. Enter a Display Name (this is informational only), the User ID (for the Allworx, it's the *5xxx ID that is automatically assigned), and the Password (set in Handset Setup). Additionally, for the Allworx, set "Use Auth ID" to "Yes" and enter the Login ID from Handset Setup as in the "Auth ID" field.
8. Click the "Submit All Changes" button at the bottom.

This is all that is necessary to get the SPA connected to the phone system. It should register itself on the SIP Server. At this point there are two things that must be done to get it working with a Paging port set to connect to an FXO port. First is in the Dialplan section of the the "PSTN Line" tab we used above.

1. Find the Dial Plans section
2. Change the "Dial Plan 1" value to this text:
(xS0)
3. Click the "Submit All Changes" button

The SPA won't send the call through the FXO port unless digits are dialed that match the dialplan. This dialplan takes any single digit as a valid phone number. My guess is that it will play this digit over the overhead speakers--an issue I'm not worried about. Most people have their paging setup to do an alert tone anyway, and this will just fade into it.

Users will need to know that they have to punch in a digit to get it to go to the paging system. For the Allworx system, a speed dial can be setup with the appropriate extension, a pause, and a single digit--and this speed dial can be assigned to a button, making the entire process transparent.

The other thing that needs to be done is adjusting the call busy voltage, but only if necessary. If dialing the extension setup for this device results in the SIP server saying the line is busy, then the voltage being provided by the paging adapter is higher than what the SPA expects. This was the case with ours. To find out, go to the Voice|Info tab, and look at the "Line Voltage" value in the PSTN Line Status. The default "Line-In-Use Voltage" for the SPA is 30, but ours shows a constant voltage provided of -27 volts. I'm not an electrician, I have no idea what this actually means.

On the same PSTN Line tab we used above, at the very bottom, is a "Line-In-Use Voltage" field. This is set by default to 30. By setting this to 25 on ours, the SPA no longer considered the line busy, and the SIP Server could connect to it. So just make sure that the "Line-In-Use Voltage" is lower than the absolute value of the "Line Voltage" shown on the Info screen.

[Stephen]

Good post!

[doom1701]

We took our first paging site live this week--works great. The paging amp is 400 miles away from the 48X. Let's see an old fashion PBX do that...

[ronaround]

Being from key system background,i'm wondering why on a Remote phone location we cannot if using Valcom paging tie onto the speaker leads of a cheaper allworx phone, dedicated for remote paging. this going to the valcom audio pair.this has worked on remote Comdial/Vertical locations with good success. I did call Allworx support and ran this idea past them. they said to try But, they never tried this thought. I am going to try this next week and test the results,good or bad.
The idea presented in this post sounds good and thought out. if my idea dont fly i will attemt your idea. the sad part is even if you have allorx servers running the newest software we cannot external page at opposit ends.

[doom1701]

Seems like a risky way to go about it--sure, you could crack into a phone, but why? The Linksys FXO adapters are inexpensive and connect to the Valcom using a standard rj11 cable.

And I'm not quite sure what you mean by "cannot external page at opposite ends".

[justingoldberg]

7.3 supports remote paging via WAN/SIP connection - No VPN! . (multi-site key required at both controller and branch)

Not sure if that means overhead works as well, but I would assume so.

[doom1701]

As long as you've got a system remotely at the branch, overhead should work. And it is a little clunky--you've got to change a reboot-required setting to say how many hops away the pageable device is.

Allworx paging has been problematic; we're actually considering putting in the Linksys/Valcom solution even in locations that we have a 48x.

[justingoldberg]

doom1701 wrote:
> As long as you've got a system remotely at the branch, overhead should
> work. And it is a little clunky--you've got to change a reboot-required
> setting to say how many hops away the pageable device is.
>
> Allworx paging has been problematic; we're actually considering putting in
> the Linksys/Valcom solution even in locations that we have a 48x.


Are you referring to VPN paging or the WAN paging?

[doom1701]

WAN--we don't use VPN. For this new feature to affect overhead paging, you'd have to be paging through a 6x/48x (whatever). Paging to a Linksys adapter is just an extension--no special WAN paging support needed.