8941/8945 Firmware Upgrades

Got the lab 8945 out of the cupboard today to register it to a CUCM 10.5 server, unfortunately it kept seizing up during the firmware upgrade - the display would show "upgrade in progress" & the phone is totally unresponsive. Turns out you can't upgrade 8941/8945 phones to firmware version 9.4(1) or later unless you're running 9.3(4). The firmware release notes do actually state this important fact, so remember always read the release notes when upgrading phone firmware!

QuesCom GSM Gateways

I've just completed my 2nd deployment of a QuesCom GSM gateway & they're painful to use, so here's a couple of tips for those of you with the misfortune to also have to deal with one these.

Firmware Updates
To update the firmware you'll need:

• A USB to serial adapter
• An Ethernet cable
• TFTPD
• PuTTY
• QuesCom firmware (getting this requires a support contract with QuesCom)

Now for the process:

1. Connect your PC's NIC to the QuesCom using the Ethernet cable, then using the serial cable that came with the QuesCom, connect to the console port on the QuesCom (this is the bottom serial port).
2. Run TFTPD, configure the DHCP server function on it & also enable PXE compatibility (otherwise you'll get errors), now restart TFTPD for the changes to take effect.
3. Run PuTTY & connect to the serial port using 19200bps, 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit & no flow control.
4. Power on the QuesCom & interrupt booting by pressing CTRL + E, then type OK when it says to.
5. Select 1, wait for it to get a DHCP lease. Alternatively you can manually configure an IP address if DHCP fails.
6. Input the IP address of your PC running TFTPD, default gateway & file name of the firmware (this is case sensitive).
7. Wait for the firmware to finish downloading, then select 0 to boot with the new firmware.

Caller ID
The QuesCom GSM gateways default to restricting the caller ID on all outbound calls, regardless of what caller ID you present via H323 or SIP. This is undesirable as many people won't answer the phone to withheld numbers. Unfortunately you can't disable this behaviour from the web based GUI, you have to Telnet to the QuesCom and enter the following commands:

1. config
2. root gateway
3. cd isdn
4. cd Adapter.x (x=0,1 or 2; if you only have GSM cards in the slots, use 0)
5. set HideIdentification=0;0;0;0; (this assumes you have 4 SIM card model)
6. exit

Don't forget to save & reboot, otherwise the changes won't take effect.

Upgrading Old Versions of Communications Manager and Phones

This is a problem you'll encounter when either upgrading an old install of Communications Manager (usually versions prior to 6) or plugging in an old phone that was found in a store cupboard somewhere...


Both SCCP & SIP firmwares for 7900 series phones prior to 8.3.3 can't be directly upgraded to newer versions, it'll usually give an error message along the lines of "auth fail" when the phone tries to download the newer firmware. The solution is to upgrade the phone to 8.5.2, then you can upgrade to any newer firmware. To do this I have a UC540 configured with 8.5.2 firmware loads for most models of phone, then it's just a case of plugging the old phone into the UC540 to do the interim upgrade before connecting it to the live Communications Manager.
You can check a phone's firmware version by going to Settings > Model Information, the version is listed under Load File.