Seems that I found a bug in Netgear switching software which would crash the switches. It would receive out of spec LLDP messages from the Shortel devices which would go into a buffer, fill up and crash the switch.

Working with Netgear they identified the issues, added the fix to an engineering build and we installed.

The problem is that before the Netgear fix, every time the switches would crash, we would randomly lose Shortel IP 265's. We now have 22 that don't work. The behavior is that when we plug in one of the bricked phones, the phone gets power, blips and that's it. The local Shortel dealer says the symptoms are the same as when the phone loses power during a firmware upgrade. When that happens the firmware is toasted. Shortel says there is no way to reload firmware and phones must be replaced with new phones (they provide refurbs at a discount if we turn in the old phones).

My first question is when a Shortel phone is in this state, is there a way I can load the firmware? Does it really need to go back to Shortel?

Second question is why are these phones dying. To Netgear, their switches freeze or reset but that should not kill the phones. I have to deal with the local Shortel dealer who is not getting me engineering support from Shortel fast enough!

I am ready to replace the Netgear switches (100 phone installation) with Dell switches. I can only assume this is some fluke between the two vendors....


Brian Fisk
President
Fisk Information Technology, LLC
Web: www.fiskinfotech.com
Phone: 412-697-1197