Install

Requrements

If you want to use phone that support Unistim protocol, you need to fit several requirements:

Have phone one of several supported models: i2002, i2004
Have DHCP server that support dhcp options

You can easly get phones on ebay, i2002 and i2004 widely available here. You can find top models for just $50. It is because companied remove Nortel equipment, and phones usually not usable without Nortel CS1000.

Manual setup

Power on the phone
Wait for message “Nortel Networks”
While the “Nortel Networks” splash is showing, quickly press each the four softkeys just below the LCD screen, in sequence from left to right. (you can do it real easily with your four fingers as if on a piano – one-two-three-four). This is known as ‘swiping’ a phone.
If you see “Locating server”, you weren’t fast enough. Power off (or reboot the phone – see below) and try again
EAP Enable? (0-N,1-Y):0
DHCP? (0-N,1-Y):1
Cached IP? (0-N,1-Y):1
DHCP:0-Full,1-Partial:1
S1 IP: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (Asterisk’s Server IP Address)
S1 PORT: 5000
S1 ACTION: 1
S1 RETRY COUNT: 10
S2 IP: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (Asterisk’s Server IP Address)
S2 PORT: 5000
S2 ACTION: 1
S2 RETRY COUNT: 10
Cfg XAS? (0-No,1-Yes):0
VOICE VLAN? (0-N,1-Y):0
PC PORT? (0-OFF,1-ON):1
DATA VLAN? (0-N,1-Y):0
DUPLEX (0-AUTO,1-FULL):1
SPEED (0-10Mb,1-100Mb):1
GARP Ignore? (0-N,1-Y):1

Configure DHCP server

If you’re planning to deploy many i2004 phones, you can use this trick and set your phones to “DHCP (Full)” when installing them:
– Prerequisite

ISC DHCP daemon (tested with 3.0.1-12)

-Steps

Edit /etc/dhcpd.conf
Add the following line near the top of the file

option nortel_ipt code 128 = string;

Add the following line within the subnet for your phones

option nortel_ipt “Nortel-i2004-A,iii.iii.iii.iii:ppppp,aaa,rrr;iii.iii.iii.iii:ppppp,aaa,rrr.”

Note:

iii.iii.iii.iii = IP address of call server
ppppp = Signaling port of call server
aaa = Action, currently must be 1
rrr = Retry count, any value. 10 is fine
The repetition of this whole section is for a second server, and is optional.

Take care to enter all the punctuation marks correctly. There’s a colon (:) between the IP and the Port, commas (,) between the other fields, a period (.) at the end, and, to keep DHCP happy, a semi-colon (;) after the closing quote.

For example, to connect to call server at 172.16.1.1:5000, use:
option nortel_ipt “Nortel-i2004-A,172.16.1.1:5000,1,10;172.16.1.1:5000,1,10.”;

Restart dhcpd
Configure phone to use Full DHCP and reboot the phone.

(I presume that “partial DHCP” would allow you to use a locally-picked address for the phone and a hard-coded address for the server, which might be good for a roaming phone, but I have not tried this).

Note: If you’re using an older ISC DHCP such as that found on e.g., OpenBSD 4.0, omit the option type line (ending in String) and use this line in the subnet section:
option option-128 “Nortel-i2004-A,172.16.1.1:5000,1,10.”;

Configure Asterisk

Hopefully chan_unistim have no any additional dependencies and so exist in almost all asterisk distributions exists. After asterisk installed you need to configure you phone in unistim.conf configuration file.

Main setting used by phone – its MAC address, you can find it on bottom of phone or in DHCP server logs.

After all configured phone should be configured itself. You not needed made any configuration on phone itself like it is done on SIP phones.

Configure FreePBX