The SPA9000 is a small digital telephone PBX, the core of the Linksys Voice System (LVS). It is designed to be a cost-effective solution for a small business office, taking advantage of modern VoIP services and digital networking to provide a full feature set at a lower cost than traditional analog PBX systems. The system was originally developed by Sipura (hence the SPA prefix on the model numbers), which was purchased by Linksys, which was in turn purchased by Cisco Systems.
Our office would probably be a typical customer for the SPA9000, with a single site, 10 light phone users and a fax machine sharing half a dozen telco phone lines, computer LAN connected to every position, and not too much expansion planned in the immediate future. We decided to explore converting our office phone system to a PBX instead of continuing with separate external phone lines at every desk, primarily to reduce the monthly charges for the phone lines. We had no preconceived notion of how much a small PBX should cost, the features it should have, or whether it was feasible for our technical staff to install and configure it without expert help. We quickly identified the Linksys SPA9000.as the least expensive small PBX which appeared to have all the basic capabilities we wanted, so we decided to try it first. Fortunately a local computer retailer carried the Linksys equipment at reasonable prices and had everything in stock. We got it set up and running pretty quickly, but it took a couple of weeks of experimenting, tuning, and testing before we felt it was working to our satisfaction.
We did talk to our local phone company and some other PBX suppliers offering more costly packaged solutions with installation services and training, but we were reluctant to spend that much until we gained more familiarity with the options. We also considered building our own small PBX around a PC running open-source Asterisk PBX software (which is apparently the basis of many of the inexpensive PBXs, including the Linksys), but there was little price difference once we added the cost of interface hardware.
The SPA9000 and its family of accessories are complex, so this review is not going to cover all the details. I'll try to mention the things that you might not realize from reading the specifications, and give my overall impressions of its suitability for our purpose.
SPA9000 Architecture Overview
The SPA9000 is suitable in capacity for a small office. It supports:
- Up to 16 digital or analog phone extensions with the addition of digital IP phones such as the Linksys SPA9xx phones, or ATAs (analog telephone adapters) such as the Linksys SPA2102, plus it has 2 built-in analog FXS ports for connecting analog phones or a fax machine; - Up to 4 external telephone trunks, which can each be a VoIP service, a Linksys SPA400 supporting 4 FXO PSTN lines, or a Mediatrix ISDN interface.
Originally Linksys sold the base SPA9000 with a limitation of 4 users, and charged an extra license fee for expansion to 16. That was a typical PBX industry pricing model a few years ago, and is still followed by other products such as Talkswitch. However, Linksys later changed their minds and decided to include full support for 16 phones in the base model at no extra charge.
Physically the SPA9000 is a tiny box, smaller than an ordinary router. It connects to your LAN via Ethernet. It has 2 Ethernet ports and a built-in router to allow in-line connection between your internet modem and your existing LAN, but most people would connect it to an existing router as we did. Most of the functionality is internal and operates via IP communication on your LAN, but it also has two analog FXS telephone ports with RJ11 phone jacks for connecting local analog phones. A set of green status LEDs display some simple status and activity information.
The SPA9000 is intended primarily to work with VoIP (Voice over IP) services, using your internet connection. In SPA9000 terminology a "line" is a digital telephone trunk which can support multiple calls at once. A VoIP line used with the SPA9000 would normally be a "SIP trunk" which can support multiple VoIP calls at a time, up to the maximum allowed by your ITSP (Internet Telephone Service Provider). We contracted with a local ITSP to provide a SIP trunk service on line 1 of our SPA9000 with support for up to 4 simultaneous calls. Your total VoIP call capacity is constrained by your available internet bandwidth anyway. The internet uplink speed is usually the main constraint, assuming your connection has consistent speed and your router is correctly set up using QoS to give priority to VoIP over other traffic. You need about 100 kbps uplink and downlink capacity for each call in progress, although using optional voice compression codecs can improve that a bit. We have our SPA9000 set to a limit of 4 simultaneous VoIP calls on our 800Kbps ADSL uplink so that the audio won't become choppy due to overloaded internet capacity.
In the LVS architecture you can supplement the SPA9000 with other separate boxes which connect via the LAN to perform additional functions and provide additional connectivity, unlike some other PBX equipment that expands via internal card slots. We added the Linksys SPA400 to ours on line 2 of the SPA9000. The SPA400 is a slightly larger box which has 4 analog FXO ports with RJ11 jacks for connecting external analog telephone lines. The SPA400 also includes a voicemail server supporting up to 32 voicemail boxes. Once configured with the setup wizard it automatically finds the SPA9000 on the LAN and registers itself to make the FXO ports and voicemail available. It takes up one of the 4 external "lines" that the SPA9000 supports. Other common Linksys add-ons for analog phones and phone lines include the SPA2102 (an ATA supporting 2 analog phones), the SPA8000 (an ATA supporting 8 analog phones), and the SPA3102 (one FXS port and one FXO port).
The SPA9000 does work with standard analog phones connected via the FXS ports or external ATAs, but it is primarily intended to work specifically with Linksys SPA9xx digital IP phones connected via the LAN. There are several different Linksys phone models with different prices and feature sets. The least expensive model is a simple phone with no LCD screen. More expensive models add an LCD screen and menu navigation buttons, speakerphone, multi-line capability, Power-over-Ethernet support (so you don't have to plug in a separate power supply), and a color screen in the top-of-the-line model. These phones communicate over your LAN, so you need to make sure that your LAN is not so heavily congested that it will interfere with voice communication, but in practice the phones shouldn't use up much bandwidth. In theory the SPA9000 can work with any SIP-compliant digital phone, SIP softphones (programs such as X-Lite running on a PC), and ATAs attaching analog phones. Unfortunately the support for anything other than the Linksys-SPA9xx phones is partial and somewhat problematic due to some proprietary and quirky design features. We bought some of the less expensive Linksys SPA921 phones (single line with LCD screen + speakerphone) to use with our system, but we also tried it with the SPA2102 ATA connected to two analog phones, and with analog phones connected to the built-in FXS ports. The Linksys phones have good voice quality, but the menus are a little cryptic, and the information display is not very well laid out and can be hard to read if not illuminated directly (there's no backlight).
Aside from the basic capacity limits mentioned above (16+2 total users, 4 external trunks, internet uplink bandwidth), there are some other capacity limits to be aware of:
- The auto-attendant in the SPA9000 supports a maximum of about 10 simultaneous calls due to performance limitations (probably not an issue); - Linksys recommends that the SPA400 should not handle more than two PSTN calls at the same time as voicemail is being accessed due to performance limitations.
Keep in mind that in the LVS architecture, once the SPA9000 connects a call between the outside line (ITSP or SPA400 FXO port) and the digital phone or ATA, it steps out of the loop and lets them talk to each other directly, so even several simultaneous calls in progress are not using up a lot of the SPA9000's capacity.
Concerns about the SPA9000
Some of the criticisms we heard about the SPA9000 before buying it were:
- It's very complex to configure, and the official documentation and support is sketchy; - It's buggy and not reliable; - Expansion capacity is limited; - Many ISTPs don't offer support for it because of its design quirks; - Newer Asterisk-based small PBX packages offer a more cost-effective solution with better support as an "open" platform.
There is certainly some truth to these criticisms. The SPA9000 (along with the SPA400) has the feel of a half-finished product, somewhat lacking in polish and with a lot of rough edges. It is very complex to configure, and the sketchy documentation usually doesn't explain the features in detail (if at all). There are setup wizards (i.e., software to walk you through the basics of configuration), but in general that will only be a starting point for anything but the simplest configuration. We had to delve deep into the custom settings via the web interface, as I think most buyers will.
We ran into our fair share of bugs and quirky design problems, some of which consumed a lot of time searching internet forums and experimenting to try to find a way around them. Overall, once we mapped out the limitations, we found we could live with most of them. But it would certainly be nice to see some future enhancements to fix some of them!
There were occasional anomalies during testing (calls that didn't connect, bad sound quality, one-way sound, no sound etc.), and we still get a few, but since the configuration has been stable it seems reasonably reliable. However, there are still many little things in everyday use that add up to the impression of a system that isn't quite fully reliable: there are often mysterious delays of a few seconds before a call goes through, there are strange echoing noises while dialing, voice prompts are often cut off or interrupted by breaks and pauses, etc.. Nothing we can't live with, but a mature system should be smoother in operation.
Some of the ITSPs we checked with told us that they don't support the SPA9000, and that some of their customers tried it and couldn't get it working with their service. Most of them use and recommend their own Asterisk-based solutions. However we did not find any other Asterisk-based packages that seemed more cost-effective, although some might offer more flexible expansion and greater ultimate capacity than the SPA9000. But this type of IP PBX solution is generally limited by internet uplink capacity anyway. There is broader support available on the internet for the open Asterisk software platform, but the quality of support didn't seem any better, and it seemed as if Asterisk users encountered just as many problems and needed just as much expertise to solve the problems. The broader range of options available might seem to offer more flexibility initially, but in practice when you adopt a specific solution for your office, it limits your flexibility anyway. In the end, having invested our time in understanding and solving problems with the Linksys equipment, we felt it was better to stick with it.
Setting up and configuring the SPA9000
The SPA9000 configuration wizards will let you set up the basic PBX configuration without a lot of technical knowledge, including the SPA400, the SPA9xx phones, and the built-in FXS ports.
Some of the options you can choose include:
- Having incoming calls answered by the auto-attendant, or transferred directly to specific extensions according to the DID (number dialed by the caller); - Grouping some extensions together as "hunt groups", to be rung simultaneously or sequentially until one answers; - Selecting whether unanswered calls should be transferred to voicemail, and to which mail box; - Using the SPA400 for voicemail, or voicemail provided by your ITSP. - Setting up a different auto-attendant script to run outside normal office hours.
However, most users will probably need to get into the detailed settings available via the web interface in order to customize the wizard setup further. These are accessed with a web browser in a manner very similar to configuring any router.
Some of the many items that can be custom-configured:
- Dial plans: Sets which combinations of dialed numbers are allowed, which dial patterns terminate at a specific number of digits, which dial codes should be directed to which outgoing lines, which dial codes should be substituted to alternative codes or urls. This is where you can set up options such as: dialing 9 for an outside local line versus 8 for long-distance using a specific VoIP service, disallowing calls to 900 numbers, or having 3 digit numbers beginning with "1" dial an extension immediately without waiting for a 4th digit.
- Contact lists: Sets which incoming lines and DIDs should be directed to which destinations (auto-attendant, voicemail, or specific extensions). This is where you would send the generic incoming phone numbers to the auto-attendant, while sending other direct numbers to their corresponding specific extensions.
- Hunt groups: Sets which phones should be grouped together for sequential or simultaneous ringing, and which dial codes should be substituted to groups (interacts with Contact lists). This is where you might specify something like a Sales group, where any member of the group could take the call.
- aa scripts: Script for the auto-attendant to follow in its responses to the caller, interpreting dial codes, and transferring calls. This can include separate day, night, and weekend scripts. By default the script prompts callers to enter an extension number. You can configure it to allow callers to dial a special code to access voicemail from the outside, or to transfer callers to a specific voice mailbox. You can use the standard built-in prompts, or record your own.
- Codec selection: Which compressed or uncompressed codec should calls default to for each extension, for the auto-attendant, and for voicemail, and which alternative codecs are preferred and allowed. ITSPs may charge rates that depend on the codec used due to bandwidth usage. However, not all features and messages may work with all codecs, and some equipment may have a more limited call capacity when using the more CPU-intensive codecs.
Unfortunately the detailed settings available via the web interface consist of many pages of unexplained technical parameters which are only loosely organized. Many appear to map directly to internal parameters of the PBX code, while others appear to have been added as afterthoughts to fix various problems in later firmware releases. Many settings are to do with adapting to regional differences in phone systems (the Linksys Voice System is sold in many parts of the world). The settings are fragile - i.e., there is little syntax checking, and erroneous or conflicting settings may have no effect or cause unclear malfunctions. There is no pretense of making the settings easy to understand or use.
Any time you change any settings it tends to cause an automatic reboot that interrupts service briefly. However, since you won't be doing this often once your setup is stable, it's hopefully not a big problem.
The SPA9000 and associated equipment support "Remote Provisioning" by a reseller who manages the configuration and downloads it remotely to your equipment. It's of no use if you manage your own configuration.
Missing Features
There are some features that are missing from the SPA9000 that you might have expected to find:
- There's no management console or status display utility for the SPA9000 that you could run on your LAN-connected computer (aside from the basic web interface); - The SPA9000 auto-attendant has no directory function (i.e., "If you know the name of your party, spell it..."); - You cannot invoke different auto-attendant scripts for different situations (e.g., call forwarded back from an extension) - only one aa script can be active at a time; - Group pickup is not available with the analog phone extensions - they do not appear as ringing phones when the group pickup function is used on a digital phone, nor can they invoke the group pickup function themselves; - There's no convenient "follow me" capability that lets you easily forward your extension to an outside phone number by calling in from outside. It can be done via the internet, but it's not that easy to connect a remote extension to the SPA9000 over the internet either, at least not if there's a router/firewall in the way. It's easier to connect via a VPN tunnel to your LAN.
The SPA400 is also missing some important features:
- No voicemail-to-email function; - It does not detect external voicemail waiting on the analog PSTN lines if you have telco voicemail; - There's no way to quickly delete all messages from a mailbox (an annoyance during testing!);
Overall we were a bit disappointed that some features were missing, particularly voicemail-to-email. Nevertheless, the SPA9000 (together with the SPA400) does a lot for the money.
Documentation, Support and Debugging
Cisco prefers not to provide direct end-user support for the SPA9000 because they apparently consider these devices to be too complex for end users to configure and debug in a working environment. Instead they offer support to resellers - at a price. I think most users would consider that support model to be non-functional. There isn't enough profit on these devices to motivate a reseller to provide more than superficial end-user support, and it's usually an exercise in frustration to deal with any issue through multiple layers of multiple organizations. At least most of the documentation is available online now. In the past Cisco attempted to restrict it to registered resellers, and a few items are still restricted.
In any case buyers will probably prefer to rely on the online support forums that provide access to expert users and Linksys technical staff, as well as a rich history of past problems and solutions to draw on.
The primary online sources of information on the SPA9000 include:
Linksys (now Cisco) has issued fairly frequent firmware updates for the SPA9000, the SPA400 and the SPA9xx phones. They are available from the last-listed web site above. It is advisable to be sure that all devices are on the same generation of firmware, and are updated at the same time, as users have reported many problems arising from failure to follow that guideline.
In most cases configuration problems with things like the aa scripts, the contact lists, or the hunt groups can be solved by careful examination of the syntax and experimentation with the allowed options. However, other problems with the SPA9000 are not as easy to diagnose. Any given issue may be due to an undocumented design limitation, a failure to understand the correct use of a feature due to non-existent user documentation, a bug in the firmware, a problem with outside services or phones, or a temporary failure to sync correctly. It is important to understand which component in the Linksys architecture is doing which job during the call sequence. If you don't understand this correctly, you may be trying to debug one component when a different component is causing for the problem.
The SPA9000 and the SPA400 provide configurable event and error message logging to an external Syslog server, and free Syslog server utilities are readily available. While the log messages can be obscure and the volume of them a little overwhelming, it can be extremely useful in debugging problems. Some basic understanding of SIP is needed, but most people with some technical expertise can figure out enough to make use of the logs.
I can only give a small sampling of the types of issues we encountered during our learning curve with the SPA9000:
- At one point we started getting a 10 second silent drop-out every 40 seconds during analog PSTN calls. We could not find any explanation for this problem in the SPA400, the logical place to look, but eventually we discovered that the SPA9000 was failing to register with our ITSP on the other line due to a temporary internet problem, and that was somehow causing the intermittent silence on the line connected to the SPA400, although they should have been independent; - We found that callers to ATA extensions or softphones hear only silence while the extension is ringing. It turns out that the SPA9000 does not generate a ring-back signal to the caller while ringing an extension after transferring a call. Instead it relies on the phone to generate the ring-back, a quirky design supported only by the SPA9xx phones and the built-in FXS ports. We had to configure a special ring-all hunt group for each ATA extension which co-opts one of the FXS ports temporarily to generate a ring-back signal to the caller; - If the selected codec of the auto-attendant and the preferred codec of the phone do not match, callers hear no ring-back signal while the phone is ringing - only silence. Fortunately we found a vague hint that the codec might be the problem from searching the internet forums; - A few of the phone numbers that we call consistently have problems like one-way-only communication (like the pizza delivery service!). We have never been able to discover why. - We get widely-varying voice volume between VoIP calls and analog PSTN calls, and there seems to be no easy way to balance them. The SPA400 offers a "gain" parameter on the analog line, but increasing the gain even a little beyond the default quickly makes echo noticeably worse.
Overall
The bottom line is that the SPA9000 works, and it's relatively inexpensive for what it does. As long as you stay within its capacity limits, and your office is already wired with a LAN, you will find that it can handle the PBX requirements for a small office without taking up a lot of space. It's not even too complex to do the initial set up as long as you have some basic understanding of the architecture and you use the wizards.
The big caveats are:
1. It can be quite complex to do any custom configuration or debug any problems. Make sure your technical staff have sufficient expertise and are prepared to spend the time to get it installed and running properly.
2. While Linksys claims broad compatibility with digital and analog phones, the system is really designed primarily for Linksys SPA9xx phones. Expect to encounter limitations with others.
Is it the best or most cost-effective choice among small digital PBXs? That's harder to say. We didn't test all the others. Our impression was that other PBX solutions have just as many problems and limitations, but that impression comes mainly from reading forums where people are seeking solutions to problems.
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