Home VoIP Network

[sainttm]

Hello All,

I’m in the process of studying and then taking my ICND 1 exam for Cisco, to then work my way up to a CCNA, then CCNA in voice and onwards for the certifications just specialising in voice.

To that end I want to setup a home network that I can also use VoIP, practically Cisco and anything that will let me use the router as the ASDL modem, with wifi but most importantly using the standard IOS and hopefully SDM.

I’m just wondering if any one here has done something similar and can recommend a Cisco device and roughly how they went about setting it up, also are you running cisco unified call manager and if you are how did you manage it?

Kind regards,

Shane

 

[Chief Wiggum]

Hi There,

first of all, good luck with the studies! I've just gained my CCNP certification and I'm just in the process of getting materials for the CCVP (voice) certification.

I have a number of items in my home test lab, but also very fortunate, in that I have access to an extensive lab in the office, which includes call manager.

I'd start off looking at a 877 ish SOHO style router or an 1800 Series, which will give you SDM, IOS and your ADSL. I don't know how much detail the CCNA goes into voice - it only scratches the surface on the CCNP. So it'll probably be more QOS related to start with.

You should investigte a Call Manager Express as that's more deployable - I'm running a CME on a 1751v router so I have a couple of IP phones and a powered switch at home. Apparently, you can also get a call manager to run under VMware, but you'd need the licences (which aren't cheep!)

Good luck!

Kev

 

[Curiosityx]

If you cant get ahold of the kit but can lay your hands on one of the voice enabled IOS packages such as IPVOICE you could setup various labs under GNS3 which is effectly vmware for Cisco IOS as it works on the hypervisor principal. Id recommend having a look.

http://www.gns3.net/


As mentioned above if your after appropriate equipment youll need at least an 1800 series router or an older 1751, 1760, 261xXM, 262xXM, 2650XM,2651XM etc. These will do half a job of running Call Manager Express 4.x for testing purposes.

Personally once you have you CCNA i wouldnt go down the CCNA Voice route but instead go for the IP Communications Express Specialist (IPTX) course which is more indepth.

 

[bigredshark]

I could be wrong but I don't believe a 1800 will run CME, you need a 2800 upwards (or an old 2621XM, top end 1700 etc).

There are limits to what you can do with physical hardware at home, particularly if you're running you're actual internet connection over it (it's a pain loosing internet access because you were playing with some feature on your router). I use a 1841 with 2x ADSL WICs for my home router (I have two ADSL lines from work) but all my lab stuff is in the lab in the office, I did have a 2851 running CME for a while and a IP phone at home for testing but I got rid of it a while ago...

 

[Curiosityx]

I could be wrong but I don't believe a 1800 will run CME, you need a 2800 upwards (or an old 2621XM, top end 1700 etc).

Appologies should have been more specific, it's the 1861 that is voice enabled which is effectivly a UC500 but with a modular WAN interface option and SRST support.