Polycom Real Presence Mobile over ISDN

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I understand Real Presence Mobile (as well as m100) rely on H.323 for communications. My environment is using H.320 ISDN and I am inquiring on what the best solution would be to implement either RP Mobile or m100. I understand there are gateway's to take care of these instances, however I am confused on a few variables.

We want remote users to join ongoing VTC sessions, however as we are most running ISDN, does that mean each site requires a gateway?

Also, where does a MCU (bridge) come in the picture? If site A is running a Polycom HDX8000 over ISDN and integrates the gateway to go to IP for the H.323 of RP Mobile, and the host site connects to Site B also on ISDN, how do things work for the connection and for the remote party joining the session. Does he just dial into the gateway which redirects to the ISDN session the host originated?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

[Anonymous]

Think of the gateway as a device that will accept calls from both ISDN and H323. A bridge like the RMX can act in this manner by setting up a confrence room that accepts calls from both. Each call between the endpoint and the bridge is a point to point call. A star configuration if you will. The bridge does the translation.

[Anonymous]

Ken,

Can a Gateway be integrated without directly integrating with an MCU? Or are you referring to the RMX as the MCU? Perhaps I'm confusing the terminology.

The reason I ask is the MCU is offsite and handles many locations multipoint needs. We would want to integrate a solution at 1 site that would allow the remote RP mobile calls to get channeled through to allow the H.323 to connect to the H.320 conference calls.

[Anonymous]

You can daisy chain MCU. Consider an HDX with a multipoint key enabled. This HDX can dial out to the remote MCU and join a conference. If someone on m100 has dialed into that same HDX then the HDX is in a multipoint conference with the MCU and also with one or more M100 (limit in this case would be 2 m100's with a 4way MP key). The m100 people would be able to see and hear all of the participants in the conference on the MCU side because they are in a conference with the HDX. Down side here is that the MCU side as viewed from the m100 would be a 4 square window within one of the 4 squares window on their side. The folks on the MCU side would also see the m100 folks, along with the host HDX, in a 4 square within a 4 square window. Depending on the size of the monitor they could be quite small. The best results are achieved when all participants dial into the same MCU. for clarification and MCU can also be called a bridge or a gateway. Some units have all three functions plus act as gatekeeper. If the device can accept calls from the LAN and also ISDN it will typically be referred to as any of these. The key here is the network capability and capicity of the device. Bottom line is an RMX is an MCU. If the RMX is equipped with ISDN then it can also be called a gateway. Hope this clears this up a little...... Ken...