Voice over IP feature

Type of feature

Voice over IP (VoIP) is a licensed feature. You must have a WebLM license for each port (channel) that uses this feature.

About the VoIP feature

The VoIP feature enables the Avaya IR system to serve as an IVR adjunct that connects to a DEFINITY or MultiVantage switch over a packet-based network. With VoIP, transmission to the switch is achieved without digital interfaces (T1/E1). Instead, all transmissions occur over the packet network using the network interface card (NIC) on the Avaya IR system. Beginning with Release 1.2.1, VoIP and T1 or E1 digital interfaces can be used on the same IR system at the same time.

With packet-based call handling:

• Each call can use variable bandwidth, as required.
• Network capacity that is not used for calls can be used for other applications, such as file-sharing, email, and Web browsing.
• There is no need to maintain separate networks for voice (telephony) and data (office LAN). This reduces maintenance and infrastructure costs.
• Although VoIP works using standard hardware required for LAN communication, configuration settings are applied to a virtual VoIP "card." The card concept is familiar and allows you to group VoIP channels for the purposes of management and control, similar to grouping channels for a digital telephony card. VoIP connectivity is supported using the MultiVantage H.323 Terminal (Station) protocol.

Feature Summary

The VoIP subsystem supports:

• Incoming and outgoing calls – the Avaya IR system can receive and make calls via the VoIP subsystem. The destination of outgoing calls and the origin of incoming calls can be anywhere in the public telephony network.
• A maximum of 240 simultaneous calls – there is no restriction on the mix of incoming and outgoing calls at any given time.
• Each licensed channel can be used by an incoming or an outgoing call at any given time.
• G.711 mu-law and A-law voice encoding to and from the network.
• Voice energy detection on per channel basis – this feature is activated on demand, usually by IR applications that need to detect voice energy from the remote end. It may be described as either on-interface or in-band, meaning that the network connection between the DEFINITY or MultiVantage system and the IR system is used.
• DTMF barge-in – tones are passed to the IR system through the connection between the DEFINITY or MultiVantage system and the IR system (in-band). Signals may also be used and are passed off-interface or out-of-band.
• Voice barge-in – this capability is under the control of an external speech recognition system. It is described as off-interface, or out-of-band, meaning that the required packets are passed to another system.
• Call transfer – Avaya IR applications can request fully-supervised or unsupervised transfer of calls using the ASAI or CTI feature.
• Beginning with Release 1.2.1, IR uses a unique product ID when registering with the Communications Manager R2.1.
• To improve security, passwords can be assigned to VoIP communication channels. For more information about assigning passwords, see Assigning telephone numbers and passwords to channels.
• Optional reporting to a VoIP Monitoring Manager – the VoIP Monitoring Manager is a call quality monitoring application for calls that use packet-forwarding technology. The manager is an application part of the Avaya VisAbility™ Management Suite.
• The VoIP subsystem is fully transparent to existing IVR applications. These applications can:
  • Play announcements or prompts
  • Record voice messages
  • Receive or send DTMF digits
  • Interact with speech recognizers and Text-to-Speech converters
  • Interact with enterprise servers (databases)

In IR R2.0, the following features have been added to the VOIP sub-system:

• Support for blind transfer using the <object> tag in VoiceXML applications - for more information, see Blind transfer.
• Support for bridge transfer using the <transfer bridge="true" ....> tag in VoiceXML applications.
• Support for upto 10 switches - upto 10 DEFINITY, MultiVantage, or Communications Manager switches can be supported by a single IR.
• Support for ANI and DNIS protocols.
• Support for converse data return - an Avaya IVR Designer external function or a Script Builder external action that supports the call vectoring (routing) feature by enabling the switch to retain control of vector processing in the system environment. It supports the converse vector command to establish a two-way routing mechanism between the switch and the system to facilitate data passing and return.
• On-system bridging of calls. Historically, the IR system did support on-system bridging of channels in order to provide for call transfer when the IR system worked as an adjunct to a switching element that did not support third-party call control.
• Voice encryption

The VoIP subsystem does not support:

• Voice encoding other than the G.711 mu-law and A-law.
• Incoming or outgoing FAX calls
• Echo cancellation. There is no need to support echo cancellation on the VoIP subsystem since this function is performed by the MultiVantage or DEFINITY switch.
• Gateway function as defined in the ITU-T H.323 Recommendation. An IR system cannot be used as an interface between a circuit and a packet network.
• Quality-of-Service (QoS) protocols.
• Call signaling encryption.

Hardware requirements

The VoIP feature requires that the IR system be connected to a local area network (LAN) that also supports a DEFINITY MultiVantage 1.3 with R11 or later system software. Calls handled by VoIP must be received from a DEFINITY, MultiVantage, or Communications Manager switch. VoIP calls cannot come directly from a public network switch to the IR system, as they may with other digital protocols (such as T1/E1).

The MultiVantage or DEFINITY switch has the following hardware requirements:

• A Prowler card (TN22302AP)
• A C-LAN card (TN799DP)

Capacities

Maximum number of channels on a VoIP subsystem, when used in conjunction with E1/T1 ports in R2.0 is 240. An IR R2.0 VoIP subsystem supports 240 concurrent calls running touchtone TAS applications on a single machine. The minimum number of concurrent ASR and TTS calls, or ASR only calls, or TTS only calls supported are 96.

For releases of IR before R2.0, maximum number of channels on a VoIP subsystem is 93. If WholeWord is used, the maximum number of channels is 60. FAX is not supported for VoIP calls. Beginning with Release 2.0, for the Sun Fire 280R or the Sun Fire V240, the sum of VoIP ports and T1/E1 ports cannot exceed 240 ports. For the Sun Blade 150, the sum of VoIP ports and T1/E1 ports cannot exceed 120 ports.

Software requirements

VoIP requires the Voice over IP package installed on the IR system. For more information, see Voice over IP package.

Using this feature

This feature is used for transmission of voice information from a DEFINITY, MultiVantage, or Communications Manager switch to the IR system.

Administer this feature using Web Administration (Configuration Management > Switch Interfaces > Voice over IP) or the voip command. For more information, see Assign a VoIP card screen.

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