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Basement UM setup, part 1

I've been busy with a raft of other projects, but yesterday I finally unboxed the Mitel 3300 and the Intel/Eicon/Dialogic gateway and stacked them on my equipment rack. (Disclosure: it's not a rack, it's a shelving unit. Deal with it.)

The 3300 CXI that I have includes a ton of options and optional hardware. I don't know enough about Mitel's product line to distinguish between what's in this box versus what you typically get when you buy one. However, this unit includes the PRI module that you need to talk to the PIMG, and it includes an Analog Support Unit (ASU) for connecting to analog phone lines. It also includes the software entitlements for embedded voice mail, wake-up calls, and a bunch of other nifty features that a) I don't know how to use and b) probably won't be writing about.

The desired end state of this setup is for me to have a phone on my desk, one upstairs in the satellite office off the kitchen, and one adjacent to the 3300. The 3300 should be connected to our two incoming analog lines so that the desk phones can receive and make POTS calls, and so Exchange can answer the phone. Once that's done, I'll also be setting up either LCS or Office Communications Server 2007 and enabling remote call control. To get there, over the next couple of weeks I'll be doing the following:

• finishing the 3300 configuration. Thanks to ace Mitel engineer Phil Ouellette, the 3300 I got was already configured for the phones I got, but I'll be talking about how to do this kind of stuff as a reference for others.
• configuring the PIMG. I can do this now, but I don't have the PRI module installed yet so the 3300 and the PIMG can't yet talk to each other
• finishing the Exchange UM configuration, including UM-enabling users, creating a dial plan, and creating an automated attendant. This is a very easy process; I'll create a video podcast of it to prove it.
• testing everything to make sure that call diversion, answering, and Outlook Voice Access all work
• adding in LCS or OCS

Of course, each of these steps has several subordinate steps; for example, configuring the 3300 requires setting up trunks, creating class of service objects, and doing several other Scary Phone Guy-type things. Fear not, I'll explain them all as best I'm able.