Cisco 7900 Series Phones: EoS and EoL Announcements

This blog will be a break from the H.323 blog series I’m currently doing to discuss EoS and EoL information related to Cisco phones. One of my students has recently told me that Cisco would not sell them a Smartnet support contract for their 5,000 7960 Cisco IP phones. I was able to find the following end-of-sale and end-of-support announcement at Cisco’s website: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/phones/ps379/prod_eol_notices_list.html Although the 7960 and 7940 with English keys are mentioned, the globalized (7940G and 7960G) phones are not mentioned. Does anyone know the EoS and EoL information for the globalized versions of these phones? The phones are still supported in CUCM 7.0, but it seems like Cisco is not going to be supporting issues related to the older Cisco Type A phone hardware. Does anyone know if Cisco plans on removing the older phones from newer version of CUCM? Many new features like intercom and programmable line keys (PLK) are not supported on the older Cisco Type A phones. Global Knowledge purchased many 7965 phones to support labs the new features of Call Manger 4.2 and CUCM 6.0 that would not work on the older Cisco type A phone architecture. Although the 7941 and 7961 phones are Type B architecture phones, these phones are EoS and EoL dates have been announced. These phones have been replaced by the newer 7942 and 7962 models that ship with the high fidelity (G.722) handset.