Asterisk and Nortel Unistim
UNIStim (or Unified Networks IP Stimulus) is a protocol developed by Nortel Networks (now
acquired by Avaya) for IP Phone terminals and soft phones and IP PBX communications.
Many manufacturers of IP PBX equipment, Avaya, Cisco, etc have followed the same path,
developing their own proprietary protocols to lock you into using their proprietary hardware.
However, these protocols are being gradually replaced or complemented by standardized
protocols, including H.323, and especially SIP.
But Asterisk, being the Swiss Army Knife of telecommunications, has come to have a driver
module for unistim as well. This is based on reverse engineering, and documented at
https://wiki.asterisk.org/wiki/display/AST/Introduction+to+the+Unistim+channel
This is in the unistim.conf file under /etc/asterisk and a typical configuration might be as shown
below. It does not support 100% of the features Nortel intended but does allow you to use the
proprietary phones and have most of the features working.
; chan_unistim configuration file.
[general]
port=5000 ; UDP port
[NT2004] ;Name of phone, could be anything or MAC address
device=000ae40d624e ;Required, MAC address of phone
callerid="Your Name" <7108> ;Displayed caller ID to other phones
context=mycontext ;Context of phone in extensions.conf
mailbox=7108 ;Comedian mail mailbox
linelabel=7108 ;Extension of phone
rtp_port=10000 ;Real time streaming port
rtp_method=3 ; value 3 works on newer i2004, 1120E and 1140E
status_method=0
extension=line
maintext0="Your Name" ;Text line, by defaults shows Welcome
maintext1="Tech Support" ;Text line, by default shows name of device
maintext2="IT Department" :Text line, by default shows IP of device
dateformat=1
timeformat=0
contrast=8 ;Contrast of display 0 - 15
country=us
line=7108 ; Define line key extensions
line=7108 ; Second line, same as above
bookmark=Music@8888 ;Softkey, labeled Music and dials ext 8888
bookmark=Operator@7104 ;Softkey, labeled Operator and dials ext 7104
bookmark=VoiceMail@8500@54 ;Softkey, dials Voicemail and displays an envelope icon
; This would be the extensions.conf entry for the above phone:
exten => 7108,1,Dial(USTM/7108@NT2004/r43,10,rt) ; The r43 selects ring and volume
exten => 7108,n,Voicemail(7108,u)
exten => 7108,n,Hangup()
exten => 7108,n,Voicemail(7108,b)
And from the Asterisk CLI> unistim show devices
Name/username MAC Host Status
NT2004 000ae40d624e 192.168.254.34 OK
And from the Asterisk CLI> unistim show info
Dumping internal structures:
name=NT2004 id=000ae40d624e ha=(nil) sess=0x7f7504015cf0 device=0x7f7526b3ad20
selected=-1 height=3
->name=7108 fullname=USTM/7108@NT2004 exten= callid="Your Name" <7108>
cap=(ulaw) line=0x7f7526b3b3d0
==> 0. dev= icon=0x20 label=7108 number= sub=(nil) line=0x7f7526b3b3d0
==> 1. dev= icon=0x20 label=7108 number= sub=(nil) line=0x7f7526b3b3d0
==> 2. dev= icon=0x32 label=Music number=8888 sub=(nil) line=(nil)
==> 3. dev= icon=0x32 label=Operator number=7104 sub=(nil) line=(nil)
==> 4. dev= icon=0x36 label=VoiceMail number=8500 sub=(nil) line=(nil)
==> 5. dev= icon=0 label= number= sub=(n
Configuring the phone:
Power up the phone, preferably using POE. When the Nortel Networks text displays, press the
four rectangular buttons below the screen one at a time from left to right.
This will get you to the Manual Cfg display.
These are my initial settings to get it to work with an Asterisk server:
Manual Cfg
EAP Enable = 0
LLDP Enable = 0
DHCP = 1
DHCP Partial = 1
S1 = IP of Asterisk Server
S1 Port = 5000
S1 Action = 1
S1 Retry Count = 10
S2 = IP of Asterisk Server
S2 Port = 5000
S2 Action = 1
S2 Retry Count = 10
Speed + 0
Cfg XAS = 0
Voice 802.1Q =1
Voice Vlan = 0
Ctrl pBits = 8
Media pBits = 8
PC Port = 0
Cached IP = 0
GARP Ignore = 0
PSK SRTP = 0
