V18 Alpha 3 - Fixes and Features

[FridayIT]

In your experience of this 80% how many ends up having O365/M365 license with Teams included for "free"?
In my experience they are more than 50% and growing; thus they probably will never be interested in 3CX.
On the other side, the 20% cannot even deploy Teams at all.

Teams is free, Teams "phone calls" is not. there is a per user charge unless you are on a higher end "E" level plans. You can get conferencing for 6 Cad/month per user, but trying to get the phone system is a much higher charge.

Most companies under the E3 license cap requirement employees will run with 365 Business standard or
Microsoft 365 Business Premium as it is much more cost effective.

 

[noord]

I have just found out that snom has issued a rebate for the M700 for users of 3CX, where you get the M900 as a replacement at some discount. What you need to do is send an email to [email protected] with subject "M700 Exchange" and briefly explain the situation. This offer is exclusive to 3CX partners and is valid until 31/05/2021.

I would urge all snom M700 users that use 3CX to inquire, as the M700 is EOS and will be receiving no more updates.

I'm just reading this here and I must say, I'm utterly disappointed by all this.
Releasing firmware with a new cipher suite should not be that big of an issue.
The M700 went end-of-sale in 2020. That's just a year ago!
This is not some cheap Android-tablet you throw away, investments in these kind of systems are for more than 1 year.
And this offer of Snom is valid until 31-5? That's also a bit silly, v18 won't be released by then so most customers will find out about this change much later and will not be eligable.


Anyway:
-Will v16 update automatically to v18 if we have 'automatic updates' on?
-What will happen with v16 if we do not update? For example, if you're still on v15, the 3CX App cannot be used at all anymore. Can we continue to use v16 'forever'?
-While I fully understand the security implications, what about allowing a 'hack' to re-enable older cipher suites on v18? I fully understand what that would mean and why you would not want that, that's why it has to be a hack and not a setting


We all want to move forward of course, but throwing away perfectly fine M700's is not very environmental friendly, to say the least. We really live in a throw-away society! I would be more than happy to pay for a firmware upgrade with the newer cipher suites in it.... Why isn't SNOM offering that instead? It's much easier to install an update than to swap entire devices out....

 

[accentlogic]

@noord If the M700's were perfectly good, the new cipher would work with no issue. From what you said, I think you know that frustration should be targeted at SNOM, who placed this unit in EOS after such a short time. Not much 3CX can do about it, and I don't want them to make swiss cheese out of their software to allow unsecure exceptions.

Without compromising security, @NickD_3CX did provide a "hack", with two options to keep those M700 units working:

• Move the install of your customer on-premise and configure M700 as Local LAN
• Establish site-to-site VPN between the customer location(s) and your Private Cloud and register the M700 devices over that, effectively making it a "Local LAN" setup.

 

[N_G]

@noord Thanks for your feedback.
@accentlogic Thanks for the heads up. We have voiced our concern with Snom. Not sure what is the problem but if there is some hardware issue then they should have excelent trade in deals for the M900. I will follow up.

Anyway:
-Will v16 update automatically to v18 if we have 'automatic updates' on?

Its a major upgrade so this is not automatic

-What will happen with v16 if we do not update? For example, if you're still on v15, the 3CX App cannot be used at all anymore. Can we continue to use v16 'forever'?

No, you can no longer use software forever, pretty much anywhere. It needs to be up to date. Not only for security reasons - Android and iOS are releasing new versions all the time. So the apps are out of date fast. This is the reality of the 2000s Furthermore the apps can only be used with maintenance or subscription and you must be on the last version

-While I fully understand the security implications, what about allowing a 'hack' to re-enable older cipher suites on v18? I fully understand what that would mean and why you would not want that, that's why it has to be a hack and not a setting

Unfortunately any hacks can also be hacked by hackers, so no this is not possible.

But yes more pressure on Snom, feel free. Its totally out of our hands, this is really a vendor decision nothing to do with us.

 

[noord]

@Nick Galea @accentlogic

Thanks for your replies.
Yes, the main target of my frustration is Snom, As I said, of course I fully understand what's going on and what's going on. I understand everyone's point of view and reasons, but somehow, the reseller is always the one with the problem.
The end-client says 'you sold me this one year ago, I'm not going to pay again.'
Snom says 'Well, that's just the way it is...'
And 3CX says 'We want to be secure'

The only one not getting away with saying that, is the reseller (me). I have to invest time in setting up a VPN, moving on-premise or even paying for replacement M900's....
I can't point to Snom or 3CX as 'the one to blame', no end-client will accept that
(And if the M700 was some 20-year-old device, it would be another story)

I'm going to contact Snom about this as well and see what can be done.

 

[Rob Poels]

We got the same issue to handle. Many customers of us use the M700 in combination with a 3CX cloud solution. A number of them use the base stations for less than 1,5 years so it’s unacceptable what happens here. All our 3CX solutions are hosted so LAN provisioning is definitely not an option.

The significantly reduced price that Snom has announced is just a joke and it looks like that they hold on to there end of support strategy.

I understand that security landscape changes and new higher requirements are necessary but 3CX and (most of all) SNOM need to look for a (temporary) solution i.e. fully support with SBC or whitelist IP addresses that still can use the old Ciphers suites, a specific firmware just for base stations that are already installed.
@Nick Galea , please start the discussion with SNOM and your engineers for an (alternative) solution. I can’t believe that 3CX is unable to beat this! We can’t do this, we’re ‘just’ the man in middle!

 

[N_G]

This is something you must table with Snom. It has nothing to do with 3CX. If you bought an M700 1,5 years ago that was made EOL a few months later, thats ridiculous yes. Was it really that way? I would think there is some protection at EU/Legal level for this because the vendor must warrant their products for a minimum period of time. The same is true for some android phones that never received an update.

You cant blame us for strategy decisions of Snom. (you can of course but it makes no sense) You can just let it influence your choice of phone vendor. We dont have any business involvement with the phone vendors and this has been a conscious decision all along - right from the start. We make software and software only.

Update: I checked up on this and as the thread shows below its a somewhat akward situation. But unfortunately at 3Cx we can not compromise the security of our web server and not go to the latest ciphers because of some devices that do not support it. I fully understand this is not good for customers and partners who just bought this device, but there is nothing we can do at 3CX. We are pushing Snom to give better rebates given the fact that its a relatively new device.

 

[Rob Poels]

Hi Nick, Thanks for the quick answer. I don’t blame 3CX for there innovation, in fact I really appreciate the innovations of 3CX. The only thing is that I’m looking for a solution and replacing the DECT base stations is not a solution for now. We’re 3CX and SNOM partner and it would be better if we (3CX, SNOM and their partners) bundle our strength instead of pointing fingers at each other.

 

[NickD_3CX]

Hi Nick, Thanks for the quick answer. I don’t blame 3CX for there innovation, in fact I really appreciate the innovations of 3CX. The only thing is that I’m looking for a solution and replacing the DECT base stations is not a solution for now. We’re 3CX and SNOM partner and it would be better if we (3CX, SNOM and their partners) bundle our strength instead of pointing fingers at each other.

Allow me to interrupt, nobody is pointing fingers, the situation is clear and simple. We as 3CX raised this concern with snom months ago. After discussion between 3CX and snom it came down to 2 options which we discussed:

• A new firmware is released that would include at least 1 Cipher Suite to allow HTTPS between the M700 and 3CX V18
• We must add a limitation for the M700 where HTTPS provisioning is not possible (so no STUN or SBC)

After snom discussed that internally, we were informed that due to hardware restrictions of the M700, they decided to go with option #2. In fact, the rebate in general was something that was also discussed following this decision as we also knew that a fair amount of Users/Partners would be affected.

At the end of the day, 3CX has a good collaboration with certain phone manufacturers including snom. This allows us to make requests and of course, the manufacturers to make requests from us. What we can't do though is tell someone else how to run their company.

 

[RJansen]

I had a good chat after my post of mentioning the problem with the channel manager of snom for our region and he explained that they tried to get the new ciphers in there but they didn succeed because of hardware limitations of the M700.
He also offered me a better trade in deal for M700 sold to customers less than a year ago so Snom is not unwilling.

 

[noord]

I even spoke with the commercial director of SNOM for a large part of Europe. They are indeed taking this very seriously.
The problem is, the CPU’s in the M700 can’t support TLS1.3 reliably. They crash. Manually provisioning is always possible, but then you won’t be able to use the 3CX Phonebook. And of course you can’t change settings through 3CX - you can’t add an extension automatically. The phonebook is the biggest issue for us though.

We’re now talking to our clients to see if they want to upgrade to the M900 with a discount and perhaps doing the swap (the work) for free, as a gesture from our side as well.

I do still think that 3CX is making very nice products, but having heard all the arguments pro and con, I do not fully agree with their decision in this case. Another solution should, would and could have been possible. But this is a discussion I won’t win obviously so ‘even goede vrienden’ we would say in Dutch and we’re looking at upgrading to the M900, as I mentioned

 

[weimerd]

I even spoke with the commercial director of SNOM for a large part of Europe. They are indeed taking this very seriously.
The problem is, the CPU’s in the M700 can’t support TLS1.3 reliably. They crash. Manually provisioning is always possible, but then you won’t be able to use the 3CX Phonebook. And of course you can’t change settings through 3CX - you can’t add an extension automatically. The phonebook is the biggest issue for us though.

We’re now talking to our clients to see if they want to upgrade to the M900 with a discount and perhaps doing the swap (the work) for free, as a gesture from our side as well.

I do still think that 3CX is making very nice products, but having heard all the arguments pro and con, I do not fully agree with their decision in this case. Another solution should, would and could have been possible. But this is a discussion I won’t win obviously so ‘even goede vrienden’ we would say in Dutch and we’re looking at upgrading to the M900, as I mentioned

How about setting up a 3CX local installation running on a Raspberry 4 at the place of snom m700 phones? You could provide local LAN provisioning then and bridge the local raspberry 4 phone system with the one in the cloud. Wouldn't that be a workaround?
I know: a bit tricky. But it should work if changing all snom M700 is not an option at all.

Maybe 3CX could help here with licensing support in this particular issue.

 

[N_G]

@weimerd @Rob Poels @noord Just to be clear we do understand that the situation is very akward for customers and partners. We just dont have a solution at the moment. how about if we negotiated with Snom to give a much bigger rebate to customers who bought the device say in the last two years?

 

[timmehb]

There's a fair chunk of Enhancements in the v18 at this stage. Aside from the changelog, is there any document to go off on what has changed over all or will we have to wait for release for this. When is the release slated?

I'd like to ask about PUSH notification enhancements, as this is a big topic in our 300 user base set up. Continous issues with Android PUSH notifications arriving to handsets. I know you have said improvements where made to latest update in v16, but are there any further improvements within v18 that are not in v16. I'm confused if I should tell me users more improvements are on the way or not.

 

[snom]

We got the same issue to handle. Many customers of us use the M700 in combination with a 3CX cloud solution. A number of them use the base stations for less than 1,5 years so it’s unacceptable what happens here. All our 3CX solutions are hosted so LAN provisioning is definitely not an option.

The significantly reduced price that Snom has announced is just a joke and it looks like that they hold on to there end of support strategy.

I understand that security landscape changes and new higher requirements are necessary but 3CX and (most of all) SNOM need to look for a (temporary) solution i.e. fully support with SBC or whitelist IP addresses that still can use the old Ciphers suites, a specific firmware just for base stations that are already installed.
@Nick Galea , please start the discussion with SNOM and your engineers for an (alternative) solution. I can’t believe that 3CX is unable to beat this! We can’t do this, we’re ‘just’ the man in middle!

Hi Rob,

Every product goes through a product life cycle at the end of which it is first set End of Sales and then two years later End of Life. This is necessary because certain components may no longer be available, or the hardware platform may no longer allow further software development.

We understand your displeasure about this, but cannot change the process of EOS/EOL per se.
However, with the Exchange Program and the additional Partner Bonus, Snom tries to keep the impact for you and the end user as low as possible.

I encourage you to contact your local Snom sales representative to discuss this matter further.

Thank you for your comprehension.

 

[snom]

I even spoke with the commercial director of SNOM for a large part of Europe. They are indeed taking this very seriously.
The problem is, the CPU’s in the M700 can’t support TLS1.3 reliably. They crash. Manually provisioning is always possible, but then you won’t be able to use the 3CX Phonebook. And of course you can’t change settings through 3CX - you can’t add an extension automatically. The phonebook is the biggest issue for us though.

We’re now talking to our clients to see if they want to upgrade to the M900 with a discount and perhaps doing the swap (the work) for free, as a gesture from our side as well.

I do still think that 3CX is making very nice products, but having heard all the arguments pro and con, I do not fully agree with their decision in this case. Another solution should, would and could have been possible. But this is a discussion I won’t win obviously so ‘even goede vrienden’ we would say in Dutch and we’re looking at upgrading to the M900, as I mentioned

Hi Noord,

It is not about TLS v1.3 but specific cipher suites for TLS v1.2. But this just as a detail. ;-)

We have both the Partner Bonus + Exchange Bonus to lower the impact of any hardware replacement, so please get in contact with your local Snom sales representative to discuss this matter further.

 

[TelcomPBX]

I am not sure if this is a setting or by design but You can not use dial codes from the web browser softphone, So if someone needed to do an ALL PAGE *__800 for example it rang but did not tone for ALL Page. Also likely too late for this but completely like to see some BLF programmable in the Chrome extension phone. If long term you think people are going to give up deskphones. You need to be able to have SP1 / SP1 as part of callers phone. Some speed dials. Honestly, the Mobile APP could use Sp1 sp2 - as we move more mobile. (NOTE - I work on Traditional systems like - Nortel, Avaya, NEC etc.) Buttons make phones user-friendly. AND finally, when you have a break in a Digital Reception (in /. out) can we have a 3rd for LUNCH. People do not want to their CLOSED to be their LUNCH. As they think ( we are CLOSED) this is critical in the phone world when you're not using Ques etc.

 

[noord]

Thanks for all the replies regarding the M700/M900.

I thought it was about TLS1.3, but cipher suites for 1.2 is fine as well
I understand everything and we're talking to our clients about swapping them for M900's.
And of course we hope they will be supported 'forever'

 

[NickD_3CX]

About the M700 situation, I just want to say, from a 3CX perspective, that we find the rebate offer very reasonable.

I just want to also stress, as @snom mentioned above, if you are using 3CX which is hosted (by 3CX or elsewhere) and you have bought a M700 fairly recently, contact your local Snom sales representative to discuss this matter.
I think you won't be dissappointed.

I should note, the rebate must be done by a snom Partner/Reseller, so if any end-users are reading this, contact your snom Partner, explain the situation and they should know what to do.

 

[N_G]

@snom Thank you snom for working with our partners on this. It may require that you are a good snom partner but i think that is only fair and i always suggest to stay loyal to a particular brand as long as they work with you on things.
@timmehb There have been massive improvements in regards to PUSH for Android providing you use quality phones. Let us know if you have issues on your v18 install and we will follow up from our side and contact Google but I would be surprised if the problem does not go away right off the bat.
@TelcomPBX Good point about dial codes. BLF - its coming to the electron windows app and maybe even web client stay tuned

@noord - ‘even goede vrienden’ am glad! But call Snom again i hope they can offer "geen woorden maar daden"