Cisco Wireless IP Phones: 7925 Product Announcement and Comparison

Cisco currently has three different wireless phones in their product offerings. The 7920 was Cisco first WLAN phone using 802.11b (11Mbps) technology that came to market around the time of Call Manager 4.0. The phone showed incredible potential, but was not without its share of potential pitfalls. The 7920 had the following challenges: • No extensible markup language (XML) support • Poor power management features • Limited Call Manager feature support • Limited wireless security standard support (WEP) • Gray scale low resolution screen • No 802.11g or 802.11a support • No support for iLBC or G.722 audio codecs • No support for SRTP, TLS, or CAPF security mechanisms • Limited language support Regardless of the disadvantages, environments with highly mobile workers (warehouses, hospitals, manufacturing, large retail, etc.) greatly benefitted from the fact that workers could accept phone calls from the 7920 regardless of where they were working in the environment. Some of these features were fixed through the evolution of the 7920 phone’s hardware. There are currently three different major firmware releases of the 7920 phone with version 3.0 being the latest version. Additional power management and security features have been added to the 7920 through firmware revisions. Cisco introduced the 7921 color LCD WLAN phone which addressed all of the short comings of the 7920 phone. The 7921 does not have one of the disadvantages listed in the list above. The phone is sold in the 802.11g/b or 802.11a WLAN flavors. The 7921 supports the following wireless authentication and encryption standards: • IEEE 802.11x • LEAP • PEAP • EAP-FAST • EAP-TLS • WPA (1/2) • CCKM • WEP • TKIP • AES 7921 details are available via the product sheets at Cisco.com. I have included a link to the product sheets in the reference links at the end of this blog. Cisco has very recently announced the 7925 WLAN phone which is very similar to the 7921 phone with the following advantages: • Bluetooth version 2.0 support • Ruggedized industrial design with hermetic sealing • More compact than 7921 model Cisco product announcements are available via an RSS feed that can be found at the following www.cisco.com URL: http://www.cisco.com/web/about/facts_info/rss.html REFERENCES Cisco Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone 7925G Data Sheet http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/voicesw/ps6788/phones/ps379/ps9900/data_sheet_c78-504890.html Cisco Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone 7925G Q&A http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/voicesw/ps6788/phones/ps379/ps9900/q_a_c67-504099.html Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone 7921G Data Sheet http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/voicesw/ps6788/phones/ps379/product_data_sheet0900aecd805e315d.html Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone 7920, Version 3.0 Data Sheet http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/voicesw/ps6788/phones/ps379/ps5056/product_data_sheet09186a00801739bb.pdf Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express Portal http://www.uc500.com/