Cisco

Cisco Systems is the leading manufacturer of voice over IP phones and developer of Call Manager and Call Manager Express IP PBX. Cisco’s 7900 series IP phones is a diverse portfolio of reliable, high quality voice over IP phones.
The most popular first generation Cisco phones include the Cisco CP-7912G, CP-7920G, CP-7935, CP-7940G, CP-7960G and CP-7970G. The second generation Cisco phones include the Cisco CP-7911G, CP-7921G, CP-7936, CP-7941G, CP-7961G and CP-7971G. Cisco has also released several phones with gigabit Ethernet which include the CP-7941G-GE, the CP-7961G-GE and the CP-7971G-GE.

The default VoIP protocol installed on Cisco IP phone is currently Skinny Client Control Protocol or SCCP which is the current protocol for Cisco’s Call Manager and Call Manager Express IP PBX. Most but not all of the Cisco IP phones can support other protocols such as SIP and MGCP but the firmware has to be flashed in order to get the phones working properly.

In general Cisco sells two types of IP phones, licensed and unlicensed (aka spares). Licensed phones include a Call Manager license and are recognized by the ‘CH1’ in the model number. A licensed 7940G model number would be CP-7940G-CH1, a 7960G would be CP-7960G-CH1. An unlicensed phone also called a spare, is sold by Cisco as a replacement phone – if one of your licensed phone breaks you can replace it with a spare and transfer the license.

Spares are also popular with the Asterisk community because they are much cheaper than a licensed phone and a Call Manager license is not neccessary if the phone will be used with Asterisk. Spare models can be recognized because they do not have ‘CH1’ in the model number. A spare 7940G model number would be CP-7940G= and a 7960G would be CP-7960G=.