Connecting Nortel IP Phones to Cisco 3560 POE Switch

The POE switch will power the phones.

The phones are only looking for netowrk and power. There is no proprietary connectivity going on.

Make sure, though, that the phones are programmed properly for the network.

Yes.

However...... there is a lot more to do to get it all working smoothly.....

I assume you have the newer 802.3af PoE capable Nortel IP Phones?
To get everything automated so you can just plug the phones in and let them automatically configure themselves you need to configure the switch access ports for Voice VLAN's (plus QoS would be a good idea...). You also need to configure the DHCP server to provide the VLAN information and the Telephony Server they need to register to.

Have a read here for what to configure on the DHCP Server:


HTH

Andy

Have a read of my previous reply here as well:


You can also use the search engine yourself... )

Andy

ADB100: I saw your previous thread and this seems pretty straight forward. One concern though..."I plan to use a Data Vlan as 1 and a Voice vlan as 100. I got 2 switches..one a cisco POE and a Dell (Dell switch needs no configuration as all ports are default VLan 1) both linked via 10/100mbps connection. I want to connect the 18 Nortel IP phones to the Cisco POE switch only. The Nortel IP phones will provide connection to the PC at the desktop. The other ports on the Dell will provide PC and server connections only as well as connect the Data DHCP Server. The BCM will provide DHCP and phone registration services, will be connected to the Cisco switch on a dedicated switchport access vlan 100 port as this will.

Please let me know what you think about this?

robertjo24:

Thanks for your input....Now I don't have to worry about my boss getting mad.

Always, always you should use a different VLAN than 1, even if you are not planning to do anything clever. Simply create another VLAN and assign all your ports to this VLAN:

vtp mode transparent !always use this
!
vlan 10
name Data-VLAN
!
vlan 100
name Voice-VLAN
!
interface range FastEthernet0/1 - 48
switchport mode access
switchport access vlan 10
switchport voice vlan 100
!

You will need IP connectivity (routing) between your Voice & Data VLANs if your DHCP server is going to be on VLAN 100 and your access ports in VLAN 10 (or VLAN 1 if you don't follow my advice). There are various options for achieving this but since I don't know your topology apart from 1 Cisco 3560 & 1 Dell switch it's a bit difficult to advise you.

Even though this sounds like a simple setup I would advise you to design it properly, as I would with any network implementation.

HTH

Andy