MY STORY: LG NORTEL 8450 IP PHONE LYNC EDITION: SHARING MY EXPERIENCE

Hello,

We deployed Lync 2010 recently and I was curious to see how IP Phone edition works with Lync so I bought one of these top-of-the-line IP phones - LG NORTEL 8450 IP Phone on eBay ($150 + $30 shipping to Canada). Phone arrived within 2 weeks and yesterday I had a chance to test it. So I want to share my experience with connecting this phone to Lync 2010 server.

My first experience was to discover that this phone does not come with power supply (but it it required for phone to work). Luckly I found power supply from my older Sharp LCD TV (required 12V, 1A). Apparently they want to make sure that you get power supply based on contry where you live, and also to make sure it will match E911 requirements (they so crazy about 911 that sometimes I think that people only use phone to call 911 :-)).

Once power supply was figured out and I plugged in phone to power, Ethernet (cable in from the wall, and out to computer like most modern IP phones so you don't need second network drop - nice), and USB cable connected to USB port on PC where Lync 2010 is installed and connected with my profile to Lync 2010 Server. It did not take long to phone to start (boot up) and soon I discovered that it is not ready to connect to Lync - apparently it came with software version 3.5 which is equivalent to Office Communicator Server 2007 R2. What the heck! How I'm going to make it? Here come the troubles...

Then I spent about 5 hours to make phone work with Lync 2010. I will describe very briefly what I did, if you want to know specific details about any of these steps please ask and I will elaborate in more details. So here we go:

  • Since it will not connect to Lync right away (because it had version of OCS 2007 R2) I tried to connect to OCS 2007 R2 (luckly I still got OCS server handy, running as HYPERV virtual server). Well, it did not work, saying something about "downloading certificate" and looping with this. Read forums and realized that I need DHCP options 43 and 120. Took some time to find out how, used DHCPUtil and special script that came with Lync server, but finally implemented DHCP and got it working. Now I got connected to OCS 2007 R2! Hooray! First small victory!
  • Big problem - as soon as phone connected to OCS 2007 R2, few minutes later it got downgraded to version 1.0.xxx. WTF! Apparently OCS 2007 R2 comes with firmware version 1.0 pre-approved, and as soon as telephone got connected it got update (which is huge downgrade) from version 3.5 to version 1.0. More troubles!
  • Start investigating how to upgrade back. Downloaded new version, 4.0, Lync edition, put on OCS 2007 R2, nothing happened. Found that I need DNS record UCUPDATES-R2, things now better, it is trying to update but get error message. Searched Internet, and found that original old version 1.0 is actually looking for WINS (!) record UCUPDATES pointing to update server (which is the same as my OCS 2007 R2). Added record, re-approved software, and boom - got version 4.0. Huge success!
  • Now it's time to go back and connect to Lync 2010. Had to re-run DHCPUtil script because need to re-create options 120 and 43 in DHCP pointing to Lync 2010 server. Done. Now got stuck with "connecting to NTP server". Ok, understand that, phone whants to know what time is now :-). Solution - DNS record _NTP._UDP in the domain, boom - now it gets time fast. Connected USB cable back, popup message asking to confirm password - typed password and bingo! Connected to Lync 2010. All my contacts, groups etc are there. Very cool!

From this moment played about 2-3 hours, called from other computers, called others from phone - cool, works like a real phone, sound quality is amazing, very responsive, everything works great! Absolutely fantastic. Now I agree: the era of PBX, folks, is over! Get in line to throw your PBX to nearest junk yard.

What would be nice to have: this phone is approx. 2-3 years old, and there is no pictures like in Lync PC client. The quality of screen is pretty good but far (FAR) from retina iPhone 4 display quality so people pictures won't look good for sure. I guess in next year we will see some phones that have people's pictures on them as high quality displays (like iPhone 4) will become more affordable.

That's it for now. Let me know if you like it or not :-)

December 26th, 2010 6:12am

Nobody replied, so I'm closing this topic. Thank you everybody for reading this. I hope it will be helpful for those who is going to deploy Lync IP phones for the first time...
  • Marked as answer by lync15 Monday, November 14, 2011 3:47 PM
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November 14th, 2011 3:47pm

Nobody replied, so I'm closing this topic. Thank you everybody for reading this. I hope it will be helpful for those who is going to deploy Lync IP phones for the first time...
  • Marked as answer by lync15 Monday, November 14, 2011 3:47 PM
November 14th, 2011 3:47pm

Nobody replied, so I'm closing this topic. Thank you everybody for reading this. I hope it will be helpful for those who is going to deploy Lync IP phones for the first time...
  • Marked as answer by lync15 Monday, November 14, 2011 3:47 PM
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
November 14th, 2011 3:47pm

Nobody replied, so I'm closing this topic. Thank you everybody for reading this. I hope it will be helpful for those who is going to deploy Lync IP phones for the first time...
  • Marked as answer by lync15 Monday, November 14, 2011 3:47 PM
November 14th, 2011 3:47pm

Nobody replied, so I'm closing this topic. Thank you everybody for reading this. I hope it will be helpful for those who is going to deploy Lync IP phones for the first time...
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
November 14th, 2011 6:47pm

I would be interested in the details.  Thank you

rocky19xx@hotmail.com

July 5th, 2013 3:33pm

I love reading this kind of post AFTER I purchase something!  Good post, so HOW do I update this phone??

Thanks

Frank

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July 23rd, 2015 8:24am

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