Troubleshooting installation of telephone handsets

Installation of buzzbox handsets is plug and play, but if you see an error message or are unable to get the phones to work, follow this guide, starting with the most basic causes:

1. PHONE SAYS: WAN LINK DISCONNECTED

This is a simple case of cables not being plugged in. Make sure the ethernet cable is connected to a spare socket on your broadband router or network switch and the other end is connected to the socket on the phone marked with a little icon of a network (small boxes with a dividing line through the middle). DO NOT connect the ethernet cable to the socket labelled with a little PC icon.

2. THE TIME DISPLAYED ON THE PHONE IS INCORRECT

This is a simple test to see if the phone can get on the internet. If the time is at 00:00 (or thereabouts) then the phone might well be connected to your router correctly, but it still can't get an internet connection. In some serviced offices, connecting the phone to an ethernet socket in the wall is not sufficient simply because the socket on the wall is not hooked up to the internet unless you request it (normally at a cost).

3. SIP REGISTER FAILED

This can be caused by a few different issues - firstly press the OK button twice on the phone and type the displayed WAN IP into your web browser - make sure you DON'T type this number into Google search, rather you must type it in the long address bar at the very top of your web browser. Press 'enter' once you've typed this number in and you'll be presented with a login screen to which the credentials are admin for username and admin for password.

Click on the left hand side VOIP menu option - on the right you'll see the phone's status in red - it will say:

a) Timeout or Waiting - This means the phone can't get on the internet (see point 2. above) or it is blocked by the router. RESOLUTION: Firstly, try simply restarting the router then once it is back online, reboot the phone (take the power out and plug back in again) and see if this solves the issue. If not, firstly experiment with the following setting:

* Click the 'Advanced SIP settings' link found on the VOIP settings page

* Scroll down to the bottom right of the various settings shown until you see an option 'Transport Protocol' - change this from TCP to UDP or vice versa. Each time you change the setting, click the 'Apply' button, then click the 'Return' link when prompted. You should see the status in red change to 'Registered'.

* If the status does not change then it could be that the router is actively blocking VoIP phones, in which case you'll need to log into the router itself and then search for an option called SIP ALG and make sure this is disabled. There's also a small chance there's a blocked 'port' which may be found under 'Port Forwarding' or 'Virtual Servers'. If you see a port with the number 5060 or thereabouts, delete this - but do check with your sysadmin first.

b) 403 - This means that the username or password combination you've used for the SIP User, Auth User and/or Password are not correct.