using UCx as a conference bridge 1

[wichie13]

We currently are looking for a conference bridge on a CS1k and they are all very expensive. I am wondering if I could use a UCx as the conference bridge? The CS1k is not yet sip enabled so I guess maybe we could you the UCx as a stand alone system and put it on a sip service setup one user and a conference phone and then use the meet me feature of that one user???

Any thoughts on this thought???

Thanks

 

[UCXNortel]

This one can EASILY be accomplished! If you put a UCx with a voip.ms SIP Trunk on it, you can get up to 25 incoming calls on that ONE trunk. The voip.ms cost is $0.99 per month and $0.01 per minute. So if you had 10 people on the conference call, you would be using $0.10 per minute. Still MUCH cheaper than a Hosted solution!
You would use the Conference feature which is not tied to a User license at all. However, I do suggest you get at least one User Licenses and put an IP set on there or whatever so you can utilize the features of the UCx such as Follow Me, etc if the need arises.

I hope this helps and have a blessed day!

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[wichie13]

Thanks UCXN, is there any information on the UCx bridge/meet me? Can the conference be automated to outcall to the participants?

Thanks

 

[UCXNortel]

No Outbound calling for conference. You can set parameters on the UCx such as length of conference, maximum participants, scheduling, etc. Remember, the conference feature is STANDARD on the UCx and does NOT cost anything additional in the same manner for all the UCx features. The only "add ons" are Reporting for Contact Center, Contact Center Wallboard, CTI\TAPI, and couple of others.
I hope this helps,

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[ucxguy]

If your CS1k has an unused PRI interface (or if you can add one), you can use PRI for the CS1k to UCx connection. On the CS1k side, you would configure a route to be used when users dial a conference bridge DN and send the call over the PRI to UCx. On the UCx side, you would configure a conference bridge and then add an inbound route for the DID received from CS1k that would direct all calls to the conference bridge. If you need more than one bridge, you could use multiple DIDs or possibly add a simple IVR on the UCx side that would allow users to select one of the configured bridges.

You could achieve the same with CS1k -> PRI/Analog -> PSTN -> SIP DID -> SIP Trunks -> UCx (as suggested by UCXNortel above), but in my opinion CS1k -> PRI -> PRI -> UCx would be simpler.

 

[UCXNortel]

I had suggested the SIP Trunk because it was stated,"The CS1k is not yet sip enabled". The PRI method suggested by ucxguy will work for sure, but you will need at least a UCx 50E to do this because the UCx would need the PRI Card. The UCx 20 does not support PRI. However, if you can forward a DID on the CS1K PRI to a SIP Trunk number that terminates in the UCx, then you can do as ucxguy says and route the Inbound Route to be answered by the Conference feature using a UCx 20.

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[ucxguy]

You'd have to select a UCx server based on the size of the bridge(s) that you need. The UCx20 platform supports up to 25 concurrent calls. If you need just one bridge for up to 20 participants (or 2 bridges for up to 10 each etc.), using UCx20 would be okay. The UCx50 could be used for up to 80 participants - the UCx450 for up to 225. I would personally leave a bit of headroom and use max. 20, 50 and 200 respectively.

 

[UCXNortel]

I agree with ucxguy on choosing the proper size of UCx. Given the cost comparison of the UCx versus the cost of an external one that works with the CS1K, you can get maximum value with the UCx.

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