Shared Line Appearances Polycom 501 Revisited

While boning up on my Polycom configurations I came upon this bit of info. If the Endpoint supports release 2.4 or later then the Polycom will allow multiple registrations to a single login.

Has anyone ever tried this? Seems a simple solution to a long standing issue.

Quoted from Polycom docs below.

Thanks for your input....Scott

1.1.5.6 Shared Line Appearances (xIC 2.4 and beyond)
This functionality will allow two physical phones to share the same line
appearance (station in IA). Along with the ability to share the line appearance the
phones will also indicate the status of line in question.
As a call is delivered to the shared line, both stations (A&B) will ring to
indicate an incoming call. As one phone in the pair answers the call (A), the LED on
the line of the idle phone (B) will glow red (IP50x phones will show horizontally
moving phone icon on the LCD display), showing the line is in use. If the user of
the idle phone (B) presses the line key, dial tone will delivered and it will be
possible to place a call from the line, even though it indicates busy.
If the call is placed on hold (A) the LED will flash red on both phones (A&B)
(IP50x phones will show phone icon with the handset turned upside down on the
LCD display). The call can then be picked up from the idle phone (B). Once this
operation is performed, the call will be connected to that phone and the LED on the
first station (A) will glow red indicating a busy status (IP50x phones will show
horizontally moving phone icon on the LCD display).
Configuration of the phones is similar to the standard setup with the
exception of a couple of changes made to the reg.x.server.x line in the phone
specific config file. Here’s and example from a primary phone:
reg.3.displayName="ip600-1" reg.3.address="8401" reg.3.label="8401"
reg.3.type="shared" reg.3.thirdPartyName="8401" reg.3.auth.userId=""
reg.3.auth.password="" reg.3.server.1.address="10.10.220.30"
reg.3.server.1.port="" reg.3.server.1.transport="DNSnaptr"
reg.3.server.2.transport="DNSnaptr" reg.3.server.1.expires=""
reg.3.server.1.register="" reg.3.server.1.retryTimeOut=""
reg.3.server.1.retryMaxCount="" reg.3.server.1.expires.lineSeize="" reg.3.acdlogin-
logout="0" reg.3.acd-agent-available="0" reg.3.ringType="2"
reg.3.lineKeys="" reg.3.callsPerLineKey=""
Notice the type is set to shared.
Here’s the line config from the other phone that is sharing this particular line
appearance:
reg.3.displayName="ip601-1" reg.3.address="84011" reg.3.label="8401"
reg.3.type="shared" reg.3.thirdPartyName="8401" reg.3.auth.userId=""
reg.3.auth.password="" reg.3.server.1.address="" reg.3.server.1.port=""
reg.3.server.1.transport="DNSnaptr" reg.3.server.3.transport="DNSnaptr"
reg.3.server.1.expires="" reg.3.server.1.register=""
reg.3.server.1.retryTimeOut="" reg.3.server.1.retryMaxCount=""
reg.3.server.1.expires.lineSeize="" reg.3.acd-login-logout="0" reg.3.acd-agentavailable="
0" reg.3.ringType="3" reg.3.lineKeys="" reg.3.callsPerLineKey=""
This is all the configuration required on the phone end. During testing a
numbering scheme of xxxx1 was used to note the shared lines. So if the primary
extension was 1234, then the first shared appearance would be 12341, and the
second would be 12342, etc. This is not a requirement, but something similar
should be considered to reduce confusion when troubleshooting.
Configuration in Interaction Administrator for shared lines is covered in the
2.4 documentation