Resetting phones before handing back

[dj_jyno]

Hi all

Our company had a contract with Provider A which included IP telephone rental. We terminated the contract and Provider A has agreed to a date to collect the old IP phones. In the meantime, Provider B had temporarily changed the account information on the handsets to the new telephony provider's cloud-based exchange (while we wait for our new IP phones, purchased outright, to arrive).

My colleague says that we don't own the hardware, so removing our current provider's details from the phones is not our problem. I'm concerned about one of the IP phones possibly going missing, and racking up a rather substantial bill for the company through unauthorised use.

Am I just being paranoid?

 

[killerbyte]

Hi all

Our company had a contract with Provider A which included IP telephone rental. We terminated the contract and Provider A has agreed to a date to collect the old IP phones. In the meantime, Provider B had temporarily changed the account information on the handsets to the new telephony provider's cloud-based exchange (while we wait for our new IP phones, purchased outright, to arrive).

My colleague says that we don't own the hardware, so removing our current provider's details from the phones is not our problem. I'm concerned about one of the IP phones possibly going missing, and racking up a rather substantial bill for the company through unauthorised use.

Am I just being paranoid?

No, you aren't being paranoid.
You are being security conscious. I would not let those phones leave your office without being reset, and you need to give your colleague a smack for being so careless.
If they are Yealink phones just hold in the OK button until it asks you if you want to reset to Factory Defaults.

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

it is not your problem in the sense that whoever wants to make use of the phones in future will need to configure it themselves

it very much is your problem if someone gets hold of the phones with malicious intent, that's a no brainer, just reset it, you wouldn't (or sure as hell shouldn't) hand your personal mobile phone in for repairs for example with banking and 2FA apps all there ready to steal your money for example

same applies here, so +1 to above, this is not paranoia, it is just common sense actually

if it is too much effort perhaps provider B can assist like they have before

 

[gregmcc]

I wouldn't even think twice about it - reset them!

 

[dj_jyno]

you need to give your colleague a smack for being so careless.

It would be my absolute pleasure.

If they are Yealink phones just hold in the OK button until it asks you if you want to reset to Factory Defaults.

Thank you, killerbyte. They are Yealink indeed, and I read the manual when we got them initially .

it very much is your problem if someone gets hold of the phones with malicious intent, that's a no brainer, just reset it, you wouldn't (or sure as hell shouldn't) hand your personal mobile phone in for repairs for example with banking and 2FA apps all there ready to steal your money for example

Which is what I tried telling him. Unfortunately seniority and voice volume won the discussion. So I reset them anyway.

 

[Anthro]

Do the reset, and if you are queried on why - you use the term SOP
Standard Operating Procedure.
They won't push back

 

[deweyzeph]

Cloud-based VOIP exchanges suck bigtime. You're far better off hosting FreePBX or 3CX yourself on your local network with a Raspberry Pi and then getting yourself a SIP trunk. Latency between the phones and the SIP server will be much better, and if someone gets hold of one of the phones they won't be able to use it because they won't be on your corporate network. Plus, if the internet goes down your internal phone network will still stay up.

 

[Leno]

Cloud-based VOIP exchanges suck bigtime. You're far better off hosting FreePBX or 3CX yourself on your local network with a Raspberry Pi and then getting yourself a SIP trunk. Latency between the phones and the SIP server will be much better, and if someone gets hold of one of the phones they won't be able to use it because they won't be on your corporate network. Plus, if the internet goes down your internal phone network will still stay up.

Is there a g.729 codec compiled for arm, I havent checked in years but this was the only drawback when I tried Asterisk on the pi

 

[dj_jyno]

Do the reset, and if you are queried on why - you use the term SOP
Standard Operating Procedure.
They won't push back

No pushback yet, and I can almost guarantee that there won't be any queries, considering that I've since received approval at executive level.

 

[deweyzeph]

Is there a g.729 codec compiled for arm, I havent checked in years but this was the only drawback when I tried Asterisk on the pi

There sure is. My instance of 3CX on my Raspberry Pi has the G729 codec available.