Meet Me Bridge

[jamcb80]

All,

Ran into a slight issue… I setup a couple of meet-me bridges for some of our executives and consequently, they love them. However, we are only running CM 2.1 and the 6 caller limit is becoming a problem. We were planning on upgrading to CM 3.1 in June of 07 which will eliminate this problem and several others. Unfortunately, they don’t want to wait and they no longer want to pay for our 3rd party conference vendor. Does anybody know if it is possible to increase this number without upgrading from 2.1 entirely? They are looking for at least 12 participants. Has anybody ‘daisy-chained’ two meet-me vectors? Did this affect quality?

Any help would be appreciated…


Joe

 

[nohuhu]

jamcb80,

buy a cheap ip office with a t1 card, connect it to your system and have up to 24 callers in a conference. or up to 30 if you decide to use e1 instead of t1.
i think it will be much cheaper than full upgrade...

 

[98Converter]

Dwalins got it right.

Could they get away with an H.323 trunk from 8X00 server to IPO... rather than direct T1?

Also you'll need to keep in mind, even if you upgrade you'll still have to get the Expanded Meet-Me conference bridge, and RTU on the number of ports... I think that was somewhere like $70K+ (for 100 ports) in addition to the upgrade to CM3.x.

Thanks,
CJH

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. ARISTOTLE 384-322 B.C.

 

[jamcb80]

Thank you all... The IP Office solution seems like it would do the trick. I am just concerned that adding another T1 wil push me into a second port network. Again, something I have planned for '07.

Possibly dumb question here: Could I hang the IP Office off of and 8300 LSP site to minimize hardware cost?

Thanks,

Joe

 

[98Converter]

I believe you can create an IP trunk... no additional hardware on the Definity/S8700 side.

Thanks,
CJH

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. ARISTOTLE 384-322 B.C.

 

[jamcb80]

Thanks to all... Called my BP regarding this; he did not think that this would be a viable option and presently, I have just been inundated with Meeting Exchange Express documentation. I still believe this could and should work.

Joe

 

[nohuhu]

jamcb80,

get your big baseball bat out and go talk to your bp. they're completely out of their minds if they compare meeting exchange to ip office. :/ of course, if you want to create large conferences with web application sharing, time management and all other full-blown bells and whistles, then meeting exchange is definitely for you. however if you just want to be able to conference more than 6 parties on a call, go with ip office. it's cheapest possible solution, i guess that's why that bp is not happy with it...

 

[jamcb80]

Thanks Dwalin!

I went back to a tech, not the sales guy and he is researching it for me. The interesting aspect is that with Meeting Exchange, I still need to upgrade to 3.X. So Meeting Exchange would be a guarantee that I at least spend twice...

For my immediate needs, IP Office will work. I didn't need the bat but I have the pine tar ready.

Joe

 

[jamcb80]

dwalin,

Just wanted to thank you... Installed IP Office this week and it was definitely the easiest and cheapest way to get around the 6 party meet-me limitation. With 2 T1 Cards, I can get up to 48 on a call and the admin is relatively easy.

Thanks again...

Joe

 

[nohuhu]

jamcb80,

i wonder if that business partner was not happy after all? aimed for $500k upgrade and then $500k meeting exchange, finally sold ip office for $5k. isn't it funny?
by the way, ip office does have its own software called 'conferencing center'. it is way too simple compared to meeting exchange but still it would allow you to schedule conferences with pin generation and automatic callback, web-based conference booking is useful too. it's cheap like ip office but useful. i've seen people buying ip office + conferencing center package just for conferencing purpose. it's real cheap.

 

[TechJimF]

jamcb80,

Can you detail on a high level how this works? I get that the T1 cards connect the two together, what do you do on the PBX side? Do you use the meet-me conference feature built in to CM?

Not sure how that all works to get more than 6 parties on call.

Thanks,

Jim

 

[Wolfcub1]

Hi jamcb80,
I am trying to connect my IP Office (3.2) to a CM 3.1 for the same conferenceing feature. But I can't get the t-1 pipe up.

We are only using one T-1 (and we are trying ISDN-PRI) but can change that to T-1.

What are you configs for the t-1 on each side????

Are you using a crossover T-1 cable????


We were using H.323 but without expanding the IP Office's VCM card I have a limit of 6 VoIP channels.

 

[SF0751]

TechJimF and Wolfcub1 - please post your questions in a new thread. Thank you.

Susan
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls, and looks like work." - Thomas A. Edison