Desk phones
Desk phones: connect a Yealink, Grandstream, Snom, Poly or other SIP phone
Use a real desk phone or cordless DECT phone on your Silux Call number. Any standard SIP phone works; here are the settings and a guide for each popular brand.
Type the password very carefully. 5 wrong passwords within 10 minutes blocks your office's internet connection from our phone system for 48 hours, and every desk phone in the building stops working. If your connection is blocked 5 times in one day, it is blocked from everything (website, app and phones) for 4 weeks. If a phone shows "Registration failed", unplug it straight away, check the password, then plug it back in.
Which plans include it
Included on Growth and above. On Free Trial, Entry, Plus you can add it on its own at £2.95 a month from Features & add-ons.
What it means
A desk phone is a physical phone that plugs into your office internet with a network cable and signs in to your Silux Call account. It rings, transfers and holds calls just like the app, with proper buttons and a handset.
What it does
- Gives each desk phone its own extension, so it rings on your business number and makes calls showing it.
- Works with any standard SIP phone: Yealink, Grandstream, Snom, Poly (Polycom), Fanvil, Cisco Multiplatform, Gigaset and Panasonic cordless, and adapters for ordinary phones.
- Shows the exact settings to type in, on the Desk phones page and on each extension.
Every part of the page
- SIP server
- sip.siluxcall.co.uk. Port 5060. Transport UDP.
- User name
- The extension number. On most phones it goes in every "name" or "ID" box (Register name, User name, Auth name, Authentication ID).
- Password
- Made by pressing Get desk phone password on the extension. Shown once. A wrong password gets your office blocked.
- Desk phone extensions list
- Every extension set to Desk Phone, whether the phone is connected right now, and a button to open its settings.
- Brand guides
- A step-by-step guide for each popular make of phone.
How to use it
Step 1: get the phone's details from your dashboard
- Open Extensions and press "Add Extension". Give it a label such as "Reception desk phone" and set Device Type to Desk Phone. Save.
- Press the pencil on that extension to open it again. The Desk phone settings box shows the server (sip.siluxcall.co.uk, port 5060, UDP) and the user name (the extension number).
- Press Get desk phone password. It is shown only once, so copy it straight into the phone or onto paper. Check every character: a wrong password blocks your office (see the warning at the top).
- Pressing it again makes a new password and the old one stops working at once. Unplug any phone that still has the old password before you do, or it will keep trying and get your office blocked.
Step 2: type the details into the phone
- Plug the phone into your router or network switch with a cable and wait for it to start (1 to 2 minutes).
- Find the phone's IP address on its screen (usually under Menu → Status) and type it into a web browser on a computer in the same office, for example http://192.168.1.50.
- Log in to the phone's web page (the default user name and password are in the brand guide, or on a sticker under the phone).
- Find the account or line page and enter: server sip.siluxcall.co.uk, port 5060, transport UDP, and the extension number in every user name / ID box.
- Type the password slowly and check it before pressing Save.
- Save. Within a minute the phone should show "Registered", or the extension number with no warning icon.
Step 3: check it works
- The phone screen should show the extension number or label with no warning icon, and the web page should say "Registered".
- Dial *97 to hear your voicemail. If you hear the voicemail prompt, the phone is connected.
- Ring the phone from a mobile using your business number. If it does not ring, check Call Routing and hunt groups include this extension.
- If it shows "Registration failed", unplug it straight away and check the password before you plug it back in.
Ring desk phones and apps together
- Give each desk phone and each app user their own extension.
- Open Hunt Groups and add the extensions that should ring together.
- In Call Routing, send your number to that hunt group.
If calls have no sound, one-way sound or drop after 30 seconds
- Log in to your broadband router and turn off SIP ALG (sometimes called "SIP helper", "SIP passthrough" or "VoIP ALG"). On many BT, Sky, Virgin and TalkTalk routers it is under Advanced settings → Firewall or Application.
- Restart the router, then restart the phone.
- If your office has a business firewall, allow outgoing UDP to sip.siluxcall.co.uk on port 5060 and UDP ports 10000 to 20000 (the call audio).
- Still no luck? Plug the phone straight into the router with a cable to rule out a switch or Wi-Fi bridge.
Recommended settings
- ★Transport UDP, port 5060. Leave "outbound proxy" blank.
- ★Registration expiry 3600 seconds (1 hour). Our server checks the phone every 60 seconds, which keeps it reachable behind your router.
- ★Audio codecs in this order: G.722 (HD voice), then G.711 A-law (PCMA) and G.711 u-law (PCMU). Opus is fine if the phone offers it.
- ★Keypad tones (DTMF): RFC 2833, sometimes shown as "RTP event" or "AVT".
- ★Time zone London, so missed-call times are right.
- ★Use a cable, not Wi-Fi, for the best sound. Use PoE or the phone's own power adaptor.
- ★Write each phone's extension number on a label on the phone. It makes support much quicker.
- ★Buying new phones? Yealink T3x/T4x/T5x, Grandstream GRP/GXP, Snom D7xx and Fanvil X-series are all simple to set up. For cordless, Yealink W-series and Gigaset N-series bases work well.
Abbreviations on this page
- SIP — Session Initiation Protocol
- The standard language internet phones use to make and receive calls. Desk phones and apps "register" to your account with SIP.
- Example: A desk phone or app signs in to your account using SIP, with a username, password and server address.
- UDP — User Datagram Protocol
- The quick, simple way most desk phones send their sign-in and call signals over the internet. Choose UDP when a phone asks for the "transport".
- Codec — Coder-decoder
- The method used to squeeze voice into data and back again. You do not need to set it — the system chooses the best one.
- Example: G.711 and Opus are codecs; your phone and our servers agree which one to use on each call.
- DTMF — Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency
- The tones your phone makes when you press keypad buttons. Menus and card payments read these tones.
- Example: Pressing 1 in a phone menu sends a DTMF tone that tells the system which option you picked.
- NAT — Network Address Translation
- What your router does to share one internet address between all your devices. It is the usual cause of one-way audio.
- Example: Your router uses NAT so every device in the office shares one internet address.
- SIP ALG — SIP Application Layer Gateway
- A router setting that tries to "help" internet phones but often breaks them: one-way audio, calls dropping after about 30 seconds, or phones that keep going offline. Turn it off.
- PoE — Power over Ethernet
- Power sent down the network cable, so a desk phone needs no separate power plug. Needs a PoE switch or a PoE injector; otherwise use the phone's power adaptor.
- DECT — Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications
- The radio standard cordless phones use. A DECT base station plugs into your router and its cordless handsets connect to the base.
- ATA — Analogue Telephone Adapter
- A small box that lets an ordinary corded or cordless home phone, or a fax machine, work as an internet phone.
- STUN — Session Traversal Utilities for NAT
- A helper server that tells your phone its public internet address so calls can connect through your router.
- Example: STUN lets your softphone find its public internet address so calls connect through your router.
Questions
Do I need a special phone?+
No. Any phone that supports standard SIP works. It must not be locked to another provider. Phones from BT Cloud Voice, Microsoft Teams-only phones and Cisco phones with Enterprise firmware usually are locked.
Can I keep my old analogue phone or fax?+
Yes, with an ATA (analogue telephone adapter) such as a Grandstream HT801/HT802 or Cisco SPA112. Set it up exactly like a desk phone: same server, extension number and password.
Which plans can connect desk phones?+
Desk phones use Extensions, which are included from Growth. On other plans add Internal extensions as an add-on.
Why does my phone say "Registration failed"?+
Almost always a typing mistake in the server, user name or password. Unplug the phone at once so it stops trying (5 wrong tries in 10 minutes blocks your office for 48 hours), check each box against the Desk phone settings on the Extensions page, then plug it back in. If you have lost the password, press Get desk phone password for a new one and type that in.
I think our office is blocked. What do I do?+
Every desk phone in the building will show offline or "Registration failed" at the same time, while the app on mobile data still works. Unplug the phones, then contact support from the dashboard with your office's internet address (search "what is my IP" on a computer in the office). Support can lift the block once the password is fixed.
Can two phones share one extension?+
No. Each extension signs in on one device at a time, and a second phone on the same extension pushes the first one off. Give each desk phone its own extension, and put them in a hunt group if you want them to ring together.
Will the desk phone also ring my app?+
A Desk Phone extension rings only that desk phone. If the same person also uses the app or the browser softphone, give them a separate Softphone extension and add both to a hunt group, or use Call Routing to ring both.
Which phones work?+
Any phone that supports standard SIP: Yealink, Grandstream, Snom, Poly (Polycom), Fanvil, Cisco Multiplatform, Gigaset, Panasonic and most others. Phones locked to another provider, or Cisco phones with "Enterprise" firmware, cannot be used.
Related help
Already a customer? Open this page in your dashboard: Desk phones. New to Silux Call? See the plans or start a free trial.