Music on Hold.. 1

[snootalope]

Hi guys..

I'm trying to get our hold music going here and I've currently got 4 audio sorces setup.. My question is, is there a way to make those play through continuously, even if there isn't anyone on hold?

Every time someone calls in and gets put on hold, audio source #1 picks up at the begining, and if they get put on hole twice in the same conversation, the same song starts at the begining.. that just doesn't seem right ya know? Anyone got any advice for me??

Thanks
snooter

"tis better to remain silent and be thought of as a fool..
then open your mouth and remove all doubt" Mark Twain

"I should of been a doctor.." Me

 

[talbotpat]

If you enable Multicast Music on Hold, you will achieve what you are looking for. You are currently implemented in Unicast mode for MOH. When you setup multicast MOH, the music source will not start over every time hold is initiated as you describe.

Pat

 

[jpmapes]

What's the down side to multi-cast? Will it take up a lot more bandwidth or is it of no relevance?

Thanks

 

[talbotpat]

Multicast will actually conserve bandwidth, since you have a single stream instead of several separate unicast streams. Whenever a set goes on hold and music needs to be played, the set registers with the multicast group and begins receiving the multicast stream, instead of an additional stream being initiated for the set.

Pat

 

[jpmapes]

Thanks for the info'. I wondered that, but I thought I'd ask before I tried messing with the settings.

 

[snootalope]

Excellent! What should be specified for the "Base Multicast IP Address?" And port?

I left it at it's defualt and then tested my hold music.. it's not playing now.. It just went back to the default "beep-beep-beep" Now what?

"tis better to remain silent and be thought of as a fool..
then open your mouth and remove all doubt" Mark Twain

"I should of been a doctor.." Me

 

[snootalope]

Ah HA! I just needed to read a little that's all.. I found that I had to change my device pool that all my phones are using.. 94 of them.. so, I'm going to have to wait till everyone goes home or something before I can reset all those phones..

It's gonna work though! Got the Group's setup along with the audio lists..

That 30 day free trial of Sound Forge works great for making one huge continuous song.. just thought I'd throw that out there, cause it's fun as hell to use too!!

"tis better to remain silent and be thought of as a fool..
then open your mouth and remove all doubt" Mark Twain

"I should of been a doctor.." Me

 

[BuckWeet]

Keep in mind you're now multicasting though, so you need to provision your network to support multicasting, or else the traffic will propagate throughout the network and can cause other issues..


BuckWeet

 

[snootalope]

If I only change my "default" pool, which is only the phones here in my central office, I should be fine right? I don't push hold music to satelite offices..

Also, aside from this, maybe you know, maybe not, but how could a pilot point be a device? When I print out a report from my call manager, I see that extension 8999, which is a pilot point, is a "Device", but if I create another pilot point 8779, I can't ring it.. it just gives me a busy tone.. i put a number inside it's hunt group too!

"tis better to remain silent and be thought of as a fool..
then open your mouth and remove all doubt" Mark Twain

"I should of been a doctor.." Me

 

[snootalope]

hey buckweet, Can I change the port number that multicast is flowing to and then block that udp port on my router by using an access-list? I just wanna stop that multicast from flowing to my satelite offices. The pool that is using the media group/list is just here in my central office, but that's not gonna stop that multicast from flowing out right?

Any recomendations on which ports to use and which not to use?

"tis better to remain silent and be thought of as a fool..
then open your mouth and remove all doubt" Mark Twain

"I should of been a doctor.." Me

 

[jpmapes]

I tried setting up multicast and it worked, accept for inbound lines. It only worked internally when putting an internal call on hold. All calls eminating from the gateways (from the outside world) did not get the hold music. How do I correct this? Do I have to make an adjustment on the gateway, itself.

I was multicasting by port (my network is switch based, not hub, of course). Is there a benifit to multi-casting by IP address rather than port (less bandwidth). My assumption is the multi-cast doesn't really spread across the network, but instead your phone or other caller's device knows to retrieve the continuous playing song from the port of the MOH server at an address it knows, but the server doesn't actually just send this broadcast out into space, it's gotta receive a connection. Is this not correct?

 

[snootalope]

no.. run a packet sniffer on one of your MOH servers or change your ip to match the VoIP segmant, trust me, you'll see why I'd be worried about it going accross the WAN..

"tis better to remain silent and be thought of as a fool..
then open your mouth and remove all doubt" Mark Twain

"I should of been a doctor.." Me

 

[BuckWeet]

well if you don't have "ip multicast-routing" turned on it won't go over the WAN as multicast