Increasing number of mobile employees are spending their time away from desks , as more and more people rely on mobile communication as their primary communication medium , they spend more time in managing multiple phone numbers and voice mailboxes.
Mobility solutions help employees, partners and customers to conduct business anywhere, anytime from any device. In this area Cisco offers its mobility solution by the name Cisco unified mobility. It facilitate users to have a single contact number that can be linked to multiple devices such as desk phone , cell phone, instant messenger client and so on. It is also commonly referred to as single number reach (SNR). Many users in organization have multiple lines for communication such as office phone, business cell phones, personal cell phone, and home phone. Trying to get in touch with someone via the telephone can be very cumbersome in case caller needs to dial various phone numbers and leaving voice messages on various messaging systems.
Cisco Unified mobility solution gives users the ability to redirect incoming IP calls from Cisco Unified Communications Manager to different selected phones.
Some of the key features of Cisco unified mobility solution are noted below:
- Giving callers one number to dial by redirecting incoming calls to multiple phones.
- Moving active calls between the user’s Cisco desktop and mobile phone to take advantage of the best available resource.
- Directing unanswered calls to a Cisco Unity or Cisco Unity Connection account by providing one single enterprise voicemail box by setting call forward no answer duration on Cisco Unity / Cisco unity connection
- Creation of personalized access lists to determine which business calls get extended to alternate phone numbers, and at what point that occurs.
Due to increased mobility of work force and due to work requirements, we need to communicate our peers on regular basis. Presence awareness helps in faster decision making and enhanced productivity and employees can view the availability of their colleagues – based on their desktop, mobile, telephony, and calendar information – to reduce communications delays, view the availability of partners and customers in other organizations and exchange instant messages with them. Cisco unified presence solution collects the information about a user availability regarding its communication capabilities such as web collaboration or video conferencing active session. Cisco Unified presence comprises of two elements SIP presence engine which is used to collect user presence information (such as busy, idle, away or available) and user capabilities (support for voice, video , instant messaging, web collaboration) and all this data is compiled in a user repository. SIP proxy function facilitates routing of presence information in the enterprise.
Telepresence is a very powerful collaboration feature which enables to collaborate with colleagues, partners, and customers round the clock, anytime, anywhere. It eliminates the need to meet / collaborate in face to face engagement. Cisco Telepresence is an ultimate multimedia conferencing solution which gives the capability to conference voice, video, and data in a single conference call using various communication devices or interfaces be it could be IP phones, live video feeds, and instant messenger clients and so on. Participants can share PowerPoint presentation slides, white boards, or live demos. Conferences can be recorded and playback later for instant reference.
Some of the features of Cisco Telepresence are as follows:
- Support for high definition cameras such as Native 720p and 1080p
- High quality and lower bit rate with H.264 video codecs
- Low bandwidth and low latency architecture
- Wideband advanced audio coding with low delay (AAC LD)
- Multichannel spatial audio with features like echo cancellation and interference filters to eliminate feedback from mobile devices
- Full media and signaling encryption in Cisco Telepresence call for up to 48 segments
- Delivers rich and immersive messages with High-definition video recording
- Supports for Interoperability with standards-based H.323 video conferencing systems and other standard-definition and high-definition (HD) endpoints
Emergency Responders – Emergency responder systems dynamically update the location information for users based on their current position in the network and provides that information to emergency service provider in case user makes an emergency call. This service is very useful as with VOIP clients who roam around the network using a variety of devices like wireless phones, soft phones , or extensions it is difficult to ascertain there location. Cisco Emergency responder ascertains that emergency calls land to appropriate Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP). Some of the key features of Cisco emergency responder are noted below:
- Real-time location tracking database and routing capabilities
- Automatic notification when an emergency call is in progress and returns caller location
This concludes details on different types of applications/ functions / devices used to address organization and user needs. The list of this application requirement would grow over a period of time and VOIP open standards facilitate building new customized applications depending on businesses / organizations requirements. Our next CCNA Voice lesson will cover how all these components integrated together work in a converged UC environment.