[cisco-voip] Repairing/exchanging Cisco IP phones, buying repair parts

[Mike Armstrong]

We've got several 79XXs that are physically broken, and the pile is growing 
at a rate of about 4 per year.  Usually it's the switchhook gizmo under the 
earpiece which, when it breaks off, takes part of the case with it. 
Occasionally more stuff goes, so that the phone can never go off-hook based 
on the switchhook only, although pressing "speaker" or the New Call softkey 
will work.  Today someone accidentally dragged her phone off the desk and 
broke lots of stuff.  Western Electric wouldn't let one of these out the 
door.

The last time this happened, Cisco refused an RMA request, saying the phone 
had been "abused", and the resulting damaged was not covered by our Smartnet 
contract.  After a couple of days of escalation, they replaced it, but the 
message was clear: Don't darken our door again with one of these.

So, my question is: is there any place I can send these for repair, or 
better yet, buy the repair parts?  I'd like to keep a stock of upper case 
halves and switchhook assemblies on hand, and send the whole phone off for 
more elaborate repairs if necessary.

Mike Armstrong
UF/IFAS CREC
Lake Alfred, FL