The Cisco 7970G IP Phone

The general look and feel of the Cisco 7970G IP Phone, shown in Figure 4-6, is similar to that of a Cisco 7960G, with added buttons, features, and a color display.

Figure 4-6. Cisco 7970G IP Phone

Hardware

The Cisco 7970G IP Phone has an LCD color display that is bigger than the Cisco 7960G display and has touch-screen capability. The phone has eight line buttons and five softkeys. The line buttons are light emitting diode (LED) lit with different colors indicating different phone states (for example, ringing or hold).

The phone's network capabilities are similar to that of a Cisco 7960G IP Phone. The phone also has a sleep/wake button for the LCD screen. The phone needs a 48V DC power supply to operate; it can be provided from a LAN switch capable of inline power or from an external power supply. If the phone is powered from an inline power LAN switch, the LCD screen does not operate with full brightness (this requires an external power supply). The Cisco 7970G IP Phone supports 802.3af inline power.

Configuring the Cisco 7970G IP Phone

The Cisco 7970G is supported on Cisco CME 3.2.1 and later. Configuring a Cisco 7970G is the same as with a Cisco 7960G. The phone requires certain firmware depending on the version of Cisco CME you are using. This firmware version is configured in telephony-service configuration mode.

You also can configure the phone manually from the Settings menu. You can configure the system message and softkeys for various phone states from the Cisco CME router console.