What's wrong with Polycom VVX phones for cloud or SBC?

[dandenson]

I have a few hundred VVX phones and I was pretty excited to move these from freepbx systems to 3CX, but as I'm hooking up the first one in the lab I find this page:
https://www.3cx.com/sip-phones/polycom-vvx/

with the highlight next being:

Limitations
Note that these phones can not be used from a remote location or in combination with a 3CX in the cloud.


Known limitations of Polycom VVX 101, 201, 300, 301, 311, 400, 401, 410, 411, 500, 501, 600 & 601 are:

1. No PnP Support
2. No STUN Support
3. No SBC Support
4. No Full CTI Support (Make Call Only)
5. Manual DST Support
6. Video possible but not support can be given on this function
7. Distinctive Ringing works only for numbers not listed in directory
8. No Speed Dial (including Profile and Queue status) or Shared Parking function keys

This sucks.
Specifically the no cloud note and #3, and #8!

Any chance this is being worked on?

I mean, this definitely isn't a platform limitation on the VVX, it supports various BLF functions with broadsoft, freeswitch, and asterisk.

This makes these completely useless with 3CX (especially #8) as not even an on-prem will work.

Please tell me this is a dated article and there is some change. These are very very popular phones and I'm inheriting them very often when taking over a Ringcentral or 8x8 site.

 

[saqqara16]

These are legacy phones, this is the reason no stun or sbc - no chance of getting this features added I would guess.

You need a supported phone for these functions - https://www.3cx.com/sip-phones/

 

[dandenson]

I don't know what you mean by 'legacy phone'. Legacy for 3CX maybe, but these are high volume, modern production phones from Polycom, one of the largest phone vendors. There's nothing 'legacy' about them.

And STUN isn't required or even useful if you have a static IP address at the site, and the SBC should completely eliminate any usefulness of STUN on the phone.

I guess I'm asking for the label 'legacy' to be explained here.

 

[eddv123]

Legacy simply means that they had some level of support once apon a time.

You aren't stuck however, where the SBC & STUN aren't supported with Polycom VPN and DHCP option 66 is.


https://www.3cx.com/sip-phones/dhcp-option-66/

In fact for the amount of endpoints you have this method is most preferable as SBC has a limitation of 50 phone per SBC and I don't personally think STUN for multiple handsets on a remote site is a very good solution.

 

[dandenson]

What about shared parking? That’s a complete dealbreaker not to be able to park or speed dial.

 

[eddv123]

Unfortunately that looks to be on the limitations list:
https://www.3cx.com/sip-phones/polycom-vvx/

You could, if you have the skill set try and create a custom template which will support this however I have no personal experience of whether this will work or not.

 

[StefanW]

I have a few hundred VVX phones and I was pretty excited to move these from freepbx systems to 3CX, but as I'm hooking up the first one in the lab I find this page:
https://www.3cx.com/sip-phones/polycom-vvx/
...
Specifically the no cloud note and #3, and #8!

Any chance this is being worked on?

I mean, this definitely isn't a platform limitation on the VVX, it supports various BLF functions with broadsoft, freeswitch, and asterisk.

This makes these completely useless with 3CX (especially #8) as not even an on-prem will work.

#2, they have STUN but only when a proprietary STUN Server software is been used... We can not support his...

#3, good news coming up for you, the document current is right but we are close to bring SBC for VVX devices. With the leaset device firmware (added support for ssl certs of lets encrypt) we can get into business and some other small thing Polycom addressed to get this working soon...

#8 is a strange thing in VVX devices, they can not register a BLF button as speed dial only (without subscrib messages)... A very complex and not very brought used buddy list is needed...

 

[dandenson]

@StefanW, I can use a VPN or an on-site PBX so getting around STUN limitations isn't that big of a deal.

You also have to do a workaround for BLF parking lts on asterisk.

You part calls with an efk like:

efk.efklist.1.action.string="*3$Trefer$$Cpause1$$Changup$"
efk.efklist.1.label="Call Park"
efk.efklist.1.mname="callpark"
efk.efklist.1.status="1"

plus a softkey to use it:
softkey.1.action="!callpark"
softkey.1.enable="1"
softkey.1.label="Park"
softkey.1.precede="1"
softkey.1.use.active="1"


The separate attendant keys to retrieve:

<attendants
attendant.resourceList.1.address="ext"
attendant.resourceList.1.label="Park701"
attendant.resourceList.1.type="normal"
attendant.resourceList.2.address="ext"
attendant.resourceList.2.label="Park702"
attendant.resourceList.2.type="normal"
/>

It's ugly, and when you park a call you wait and watch for the BLF key to light up *or* you listen for a parking lot announcement on the line. But customers are used to this because it's how polycom does it.

Is this doable with 3CX? Keep in mind that I'm a very experienced asterisk admin but brand new to 3CX.

Thanks.

 

[StefanW]

The First part of the efklist is not understood by default by a system, it is a dialing pattern which will be evaluated at the PBX. So we cant use this.

Our BLFs are of the syntax:
attendant.resourceList.1.address="%%blf1%%"
attendant.resourceList.1.label="%%blffirstname1%% %%blflastname1%%" attendant.resourceList.1.type="automata"

type automata is more how the call is picked or dialed in context of the state.

PS: SBC is in production for compatibility test...