I am are working on a solution for a county fire service. They recently have had a sizeable Cisco IP phone rollout, over their ~30 stations.
The next stage is to install phones in their Breathing Apparratus rooms, which we can't hardwire cat-5 in to. So, we're testing a solution, using Cisco 1231G AP's, the remote in workgroup bridge mode, to link via a wireless bridge, back to the LAN. We then plug a Cisco IP phone eg: 7912G, in via cross-over to the remote AP.
The problem is when I plug a phone in to the Ethernet of the remote AP via cross-over cable, the phone switches off. This works fine conecting up my laptop. If I install a switch between the two devices, plug AP and phone in to that - it works. Because of the environement in the fire stations, we don't want to install a switch, we would like to use the cross-over direct in to the phone. (if possible!) I am assuming there is some kind of Cisco proprietary Inline power issue going on here, and the phone switches itself off, expecting to be powered via Inline?
Customer doesn't want to use a wireless Cisco 7920 - they'd like a desktop phone, so we're stuck with a wireless workgroup bridge. We could use another AP, without Cisco Inline, but the 1200 is rugged, and deisgned for that envirnment, much preferred choice.
How can we get the phone working with the access point, without the use of a switch?
Any help here would be greatfully appreciated.
Stuart.