I read some articles about using Asterisk to support VOIP on Cisco phones.  Most of the discussion centers around using the SIP implementation for Cisco phones and Asterisk.  That means that you either have to buy the phone with the SIP firmware (added cost) or buy the phone and then update the firmware to use SIP (a pain in the neck).

Looking around I found several articles that explained how to get SCCP (Skinny or Cisco's proprietary VOIP protocol) to work on an Asterisk system.  I followed the instructions and built the chansccp.so package on installed it on my server.  The process was simple and painless.

Viola - now my Asterisk server will use the Cisco SCCP protocol.  I "borrowed" a Cisco phone from the office for testing purposes.....

It was actually simple enough to set the parameters manually on the phone to point it at my Asterisk Server.  I rebooted the phone and wham!  It registered with my server and I had a dial tone.

It does take some tweaking of the SCCP.conf file that powers the system to get things to work, but if you know how Cisco phones work and Asterisk works - no problems.

I enjoyed using the "borrowed" office Cisco phone for a few days and look forward to getting one at the house in the future.

Why can't the world just use SIP?