Your phones arrive configured. Each one needs two things from you, power and a network, and then it connects to your phone system on its own.
Power
There are two ways to power your phones.
- The adapter in the box. Always works, anywhere there is a mains socket.
- The network cable, using Power over Ethernet, or PoE. This works only when the far end of that cable is a PoE switch or a PoE injector. A broadband router does not supply power, and neither does an ordinary network switch, so a cable running back to either of those carries data only and the phone will not work.
If you know you have PoE, use it and leave the adapter in the box. If you are not sure, use the adapter. It does no harm either way.
A network, by cable
Plug a network cable into the socket on the back of the phone marked with a network symbol, and the other end into your router or a network point.
The phone collects its settings, restarts, and is ready when it shows its own extension number on screen. Give it a couple of minutes the first time.
A network, by Wi-Fi
On a phone with Wi-Fi there are six steps, all done on the phone itself.
- Press Menu, then go to Basic, then Wi-Fi.
- Set the Wi-Fi field to On and choose Save. The phone starts looking for networks.
- Highlight your network in the list and choose Connect.
- Type the password into the Password field.
- If you want to check what you have typed, set Show Password to Enabled.
- Choose OK.
From there it behaves the same as a cabled phone. It collects its settings, restarts, and shows its own extension number on screen when it is ready.
If your network is not in the list
Choose Scan to look again. A network that still does not appear is usually one of three things.
- Signal. The phone is further from the router than it can reach. Try it next to the router first, which separates a signal problem from everything else.
- A hidden network. One that does not broadcast its name has to be added by hand, under Add Network in the same menu.
- Band. If your router publishes 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz under separate names, try the 2.4 GHz one. It carries further, and through more walls, than 5 GHz.
Which Wi-Fi standards the phones support
Most of the Wi-Fi models we supply run 802.11a, b, g, n and ac, which is Wi-Fi 5, on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. The T85W adds ax, which is Wi-Fi 6.
Wi-Fi is backward compatible, so a Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 7 router will still talk to a Wi-Fi 5 phone. The standard is rarely what stops a phone joining; distance and hidden networks are the usual answers.
A quicker way, if you are next to the router
Yealink phones support Wi-Fi Protected Setup, or WPS, which lets a phone join a network without you typing the password at all.
Go to Menu, Basic, Wi-Fi and choose the WPS option, then press the WPS button on your router within two minutes. The phone joins on its own. Your router may label the button WPS, or show two arrows chasing each other in a circle.
Moving a phone later
If a phone moves to a different site or a different network, plug it into the new one, or repeat the six steps with the new Wi-Fi details. Nothing else needs changing and the phone keeps its own number.
If a phone does not come up
Ring support on 01202 144949 or email support@portphones.co.uk, and we will look at it from our end. We can see whether the phone has reached us, which usually says straight away whether the problem is the network or the phone.
