Setting up Cisco IP phones with Asterisk

Asterisk Asterisk Support
1

Just looking for a little help with planning out my configuration and getting started. I’ve been wanting to setup and Asterisk server that will work with some Cisco IP phones. I currently have a Cisco 7940 to play around with, and am probably going to add around 3 or 4 more phones to the system if I get it working. I need the Asterisk server to interface with my POTS line, with the following features:

Intercom functionality
Internal voicemail (mailbox for every phone)
Possibly an IVR interface that auto answers and allows you to dial an extension
Music on hold
Ability to announce intercom messages over phones and ceiling speakers that I already have (just a standard home theater receiver is interfaced with them)

So I guess the questions that come to mind are:

  1. In order to interface with my wireline, will I have to get something as expensive as buying a Digium TDM422B FXO card, or can I just use a PAP2 adapter to serve the same purpose between my phone line and the Asterisk server?

  2. Do I have to pay for the SIP firmware for these Cisco phones through Cisco?

  3. Are all the features that I’m trying to accomplish available in Asterisk?

Thanks

2

You’ll need the sip firmware from somewhere.
In the sip settings, you’ll have to add insecure=very so the cisco phones will work.

3

[quote=“chris.mylonas”]You’ll need the sip firmware from somewhere.
In the sip settings, you’ll have to add insecure=very so the cisco phones will work.[/quote]
Thanks for the reply. So flashing the SIP firmware to the Cisco phones and plugging them into a switch connected to Asterisk will pretty much just work as a plug and play solution after applying that SIP setting? How about the interfacing to analog wireline, as well as the other features that I’m wanting to utilize that I listed?