Upgrade 3CX to v18 and get it hosted free!

Asterisk phone cisco ATA18x

Author image

Cisco ATA-18x Series Analog Telephone Adaptor

Cisco’s product pages:

The ATA 188 adds a switch with a second ethernet port.

These devices convert two analog phones to IP phones and support the following protocols:

(Note: You will most likely need to download a firmware package to convert the device for the desired protocol.)
(Note: Firmware packages require a contract to download.)

If you purchased the ATA new (not through a VOIP provider,) you get at least one free support call. If lucky and you press them enough, they will give you access to the SIP firmware for download. If you go the contract route, the SmartNet package that applies is part #CON-SNT-ATA186 for the 186 and CON-SNT-ATA188 for the 188.

They support the following Codecs:

  • G.729, G.729A, G.729AB2
  • G.723.1
  • G.711a-law
  • G.711u-law

(Note: The ATA only supports G.729A on one channel at a time due to CPU load. The other channel will use G.711)

ATA186 firmware 3.2.0 and lower can be vulnerable to a denial of service attack.

Firmware prior to 2.14 build 020514a is vulnerable and could be easily tricked to disclose device administration password to the attacker:
Cisco Security Advisory: ATA-186 Password Disclosure Vulnerability

Configuration

A detailed practical explanation of how to configure ATA-18x with Asterisk (including password reset procedure):

You’ll need to set up a TFTP server for firmware upgrades.

The firmware package should include detailed instructions on how to configure the unit. If you opt for the TFTP configuration route, the basic steps are:

  • Edit the text configuration file
  • Use the cfgfmt.exe tool to convert the file to binary format named the MAC address (no caps)
  • Upload the binary file to the TFTP server
  • Reboot the device

WebConfiguration

For Remote purposes, small installations or quick config changes, it’s easier to configure the ATA 186 over the integrated Web server.
To find out the IP address of the ATA 186 pick up a connected phone, press the button on Top and Dial “21#”. The ATA 186 now tells you its actual IP address. Open a web browser and point it to the address and ad “/dev” to the end.
Example: The ATA tells you IP 192.168.0.15 then points your Browser to “http://192.168.1.15/dev” and you can quickly change some parameters without needing to reflash it.

Turning off silence suppression

If you’re getting these warnings during a call from the ATA:

NOTICE[xxx]: File rtp.c, Line 264 (process_rfc3389): RFC3389 support incomplete.
Turn off on client if possible

Then you have to login to the ATA configuration page and change “audiomode” to “0x00140014”

Distinctive ring

Set variable ALERT_INFO to change the ring cadence. Example:

exten => 5555,1,SetVar(ALERT_INFO=Bellcore-dr1) ; possible values are Bellcore-dr1
exten => 5555,2,Dial(Sip/5555) ; … Bellcore-dr5

Bellcore-dr1 -> standard phone ring cycle
Bellcore-dr2 -> “Long-Long”
Bellcore-dr3 -> “Short-Short-Long”
Bellcore-dr4 -> “Short-Long-Short”
Bellcore-dr5 -> Short – “Ringsplash”

NOTE: As of Asterisk 1.4 this method no longer works. Instead of SetVar(ALERT_INFO=Bellcore-drX) you must use SIPAddHeader(Alert-Info: Bellcore-drX).

Cancel CDP broadcasts

Cisco devices are quite friendly. When you hook them on the wire they will broadcast CDP
traffic (Cisco Discovery Protocol) trying to locate other cisco devices. You may not need the extra traffic. (if the only cisco device you got is your ATA 18x) Here’s how to proceed:
This can be done by selecting IVR menu 323, and then entering the value 106. If you are configuring this field via the Web Interface, then configure the hex value 0x6A in the OpFlags field. This will disable, CDP Discovery, 802.1Q tagging, and it will prevent the ATA from requesting option 150 in its DHCP request. Incidentally, some DHCP servers will not respond to a client that requests an Option unknown to them, which may lead to the ATA not being able to acquire an IP address.

Call Pickup

It seems that the logic for handling special calling features (vertical service codes) intercepts the standard *8 Asterisk call pickup code. One option is to change the pickupexten in features.conf to a regular extension number. My extensions range from 201-219, so I picked 200 as the pickup extension for example.

Ringtones

To alter the ringtones that you hear on the phone you need to update the settings for your configuration.
For Swedish dial tone you can use:
DialTone 1,30958,0,3889,0,1,0,0,0
BusyTone 1,30958,0,1757,0,0,2000,2000,0
ReorderTone 1,30958,0,1757,0,0,2000,6000,0
RingbackTone 1,30958,0,1927,0,0,8000,40000,0
SITTone 101,3,24062,3640,14876,4778,5126,5297,3,2664,0,2664,0,2664,8000,0,0
CallWaitTone 1,30958,0,1757,0,0,1600,4000,11200
AlertTone 1,30467,0,4385,0,0,480,480,1920

See Also


Asterisk | Asterisk Configuration | Channel Configuration | Configuration for Specific Phones

Related Posts:

Get 3CX - Absolutely Free!
Link up your team and customers Phone System Live Chat Video Conferencing

Hosted or Self-managed. Up to 10 users free forever. No credit card. Try risk free.

3CX
A 3CX Account with that email already exists. You will be redirected to the Customer Portal to sign in or reset your password if you've forgotten it.