Shoretel/Mitel SG90. How many phones / increase phones ?

[nevoz]

Hello All,
I am helping out a company with a Shoretel SG90 switch at one of their sites. Using Mitel Director build:21.90.4128.0 ; Small Business Edition 100 .

They are about the exhaust their phone capacity on this switch. In the attached screenshot you will see "49" in use and "50" is the capacity.

Firstly, I'm wondering if this is the "true" capacity? Reading around online, this switch should support up to 90 phones.

If you look at the same attached screenshot, you will see at the bottom that it says 30 built in IP phones capacity. I assume this is the sum of IP phones as per configured for ports 3,4,5,6,7,8. However I am confused with then comparing with the top part means for the "IP phones capacity" being 50 ... ?

Ports 1,2,9,11 - these are set to "Conference" as per screen shot. Could these be re-purposed as additional IP phone slots? Will this increase the 50 phone capacity though? How can I found out how these "Conference" slots are being used?

Unfortunately the knowledgeable guy who set this up - an authorised Shoretel Engineer - has shut up shop and is now working in the mines...! (we do have a Shoretel maintenance contract with someone else, but they are quite useless..take weeks to respond and usually don't have any idea).

Any assistance or guidance is much appreciated..!

Many Thanks,

Nev

[Lance]

You are occupying ports for other functions. Each port is equal to 5 Ip phones. If you got rid of the conference ports and the 2 analog users you could have an additional 30 IP resources.

[Lance]

At the least, I would get rid of the conference ports for the extra 20 IP phones or suggest that they add another switch. Conference ports aren't as useful as they should be for the amount of resource they eat.

[nevoz]

hi Lance, thanks for the response, it is greatly appreciated.
I take it the analog ports you mention are ports 10 & 12? This would make sense as I believe these boardrooms use polycom conference phones. To determine what ports 1,2,9,11 would be used for - would it be a matter of following the wiring from this switch? I notice looking at images there is a parallel port on the front of the switch. Is this where this wiring is?
If I were to enable ports 1,2,9,11 for IP phones, is there anything else needed to be done to enable additional IP phone capacity? If something "broke" from doing this, can I simply change back to a Conference port type and things should work as normal again?
Thanks again..!

[tbraud]

You could change ports 1,2,9,11 to IP phones. If this is your only switch you will lose the ability to have 4 party conference calls. You can still do 3 party conference calls thoug. (not a big deal considering the resources this takes) And yes if you want you can just change it back.

[nevoz]

Thanks tbraud, I will give it a crack! Could you please explain one more thing to me ... ports 5 to 8 each have 5 IP phones allowed .. so this gives a total of 4 x 5 = 20 IP phones. How is then we are able to have currently 49 phones connected and working on this switch?

[nevoz]

Actually I think I have found out the answer to my last question..
The SG90 has 30 built in IP phone ports that cannot be altered. 5 x 4 IP "alterable" phone ports are set up. This gives a total of 50 port IP Phone capacity.
In terms of the "Conference" allocated port types, it seems that having 4 of these set to Conference allows 6-party "make me" conferencing. Taking these away reduces it down to 3-party.
I have also read that one may instead download a free VMware virtual appliance from Shoretel that apparently allows greater than 6-party conferencing and negates the need to use up resources on the SG90.

[B08bydigital]

.
In terms of the "Conference" allocated port types, it seems that having 4 of these set to Conference allows 6-party "make me" conferencing. Taking these away reduces it down to 3-party.

Why does it seem like that? Having 4 set to Conference gives you up to 4 parties in make me conferencing.

.
I have also read that one may instead download a free VMware virtual appliance from Shoretel that apparently allows greater than 6-party conferencing and negates the need to use up resources on the SG90.

The conference bridge (SA-100) is technically a "free" virtual appliance, true. But if you want to also use it, you'll need to buy licenses.

[nevoz]

Why does it seem like that? Having 4 set to Conference gives you up to 4 parties in make me conferencing.

I have probably misunderstood (very novice on these matters). These following threads mention 6-party, but maybe more conference ports are needed to allow it.

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/630635-shoretel-conference-ports-huh

https://www.shoretelforums.com/forum/shoretel-tech/administrators/364-make-me-conferencing

[B08bydigital]

You need 1 port per party. So for 6 party, you need 6 ports. 4 ports will only give you up to 4.

[Lance]

You need 1 port per party. So for 6 party, you need 6 ports. 4 ports will only give you up to 4.

This was why I mentioned that conference ports aren't worth the cost of resources.

[rwensmann]

Click on the banner ad, an second SG90 switch is cheap to have for conferencing resources and also have a little fail over.

[nevoz]

Thanks very much for the clarification folks, appreciate it! A question, is it still possible to purchase "Extension+Mailbox" licenses? I am having issues purchasing via our so called Shoretel/Mitel rep.

[tbraud]

Client Software

30146

MiVoice Connect Telephony license

Not sure you can just buy an EXT&Mailbox license anymore but this is the new equivalent. They are backwards compatible too so this will work with your system. 30146 is the Mitel part number

[nevoz]

tbraud, thanks very much..!