[cisco-voip] E164 Globalization Problem

[Fred]

So I see the value in globalizing numbers as they ingress into CUCM to
E.164 global formats (i.e. +14082201852).  The benefits for mobility
and desktop/mobile clients are clear.

Here's the rub: 2nd generation IP Phones (i.e. 7940/7960/IP
Communicator) and their lack of support for dialing "+"

The 8.x SRND states that they cannot display the "+" symbol.  In
testing, it appears that this is not quite correct.  They display "+"
while alerting and while browsing calls lists just fine.  However,
when dialing a number containing "+", they appear to ignore it and go
immediately to the first true digit.  Which, inevitably, will overlap
with most internal dial-plans.

Initially I thought I could work-around this issue for the older
handsets by using Calling Party Transformations - on only these
devices.  Only these devices don't seem to do anything with these
transforms.

So if a customer is looking to deploy the newest mobile technology
*and* implement E164 normalization/globalization to make that
technology work best, they are seemingly stuck if they happen to have
older phones.  Or IP Communicator, which works in the same fashion.
This happens to be the significant majority of my largest Cisco UC
customers.