AudioCodes Media Servers

AudioCodes Media Servers
Yossi Kurtzman
Director, Product Marketing, Systems Group

AudioCodes Media Server (IPmedia) is a VoP infrastructure unit providing value-added media processing services to Next Generation IP/ATM networks. It can be applied to a wide range of applications and services, including:

  • Conference servers
  • Announcements servers
  • IVRs
  • Prepaid and postpaid calling cards
  • Call centers
  • Voicemail and unified messaging
  • IP Centrex/Hosted PBX
  • Wireless 2G VAD services
  • Wireless 3GPP – IMS Fixed Mobile Convergence server (MRF)
  • Transcoding (including mandatory wireless coders support, AMR, EVRC, etc.)
  • Tapping/replication – legal interception, push-to-talk, music-on-hold
  • Recording servers
  • Speech-enabled services – command & control, speech portals and voice dialing
  • Video – announcements, transcoding, IVR/info portals, video-mail, streaming and conferencing (Roadmap).
    The IPmedia Media Server is controlled by a control agent such as a softswitch or application server. The IPmedia communicates with these agents via standard control protocols such as MEGACO (H.248), MGCP and SIP.

Following is an example for a Media Server application in an IP Centrex application:

AudioCodes IPmedia product line consists of the following media server platforms:

  • IPmedia 2000 – 60-240 channels, 1U ,entry level
  • IPmedia 3000 – 480-2016 channels, 2U small-sized , high availability , carrier-grade system
  • IPmedia 5000 – 2,000-8000 channels, 5U medium-sized, HA, carrier-grade system, planned for 2Q2005
  • IPmedia 8000 – 2,000-18,000 channels, 12U large sized, HA, carrier-grade system, planned for 2nd half of 2005

Each of the above systems provides the following functionality:

Voice Processing:

  • Packet streaming per RTP/RTCP (RFC 1889/1890).
  • Voice Compression:
    • VoIP: G.711, G.726, G.727, G.729A, G.723.1, G.728 , NetCoder®
    • GSM/UMTS: GSM-FR, GSM-EFR, AMR (all 8 rates),
    • CDMA: EVRC, QCELP 8k, QCELP 13k
  • Echo Cancellation: G.168-2000 compliant with tail of 30/64/128 msec.
  • Voice & Tone generation and signaling discrimination
  • VAD, CNG and PLC for all coders
  • IPmedia Detectors: Pattern Detector, Answer Detector (AD), Answering Machine Detection, AGC and Energy Detector
  • Voice, Data and Fax Discrimination
  • Fax Relay per T.38 (Group 3 real time fax relay up to 14.4 Kbps with auto fallback; tolerant to delays up to 4 seconds)
  • RTP Multicast for Legal Intercept
  • RTP<->RTP Transcoding
  • RTP Redundancy support (RFC 2198)
  • Field proven dynamic jitter buffer
  • Sophisticated packet interpolation
  • VoATM (3000/5000/8000 platforms)
  • AAL1 (PVC, SVC)
  • AAL2 (PVC, SVC)

IVR

  • DTMF detection and generation (either inband or using RFC 2833)
  • Prompts playback locally or from remote repository (via HTTP streaming)
  • Play-Collect DTMF advanced audio packaged (play sequences of messages, collect digits, screening, repeat announcements, variables, handle errors and loop indefinitely)
  • Barge-in (DTMF and/or Speech detected)
  • Complex “Menu” logic: VXML
  • Field proven solutions with 3rd party 3rd party Application Server partnerships
  • SIP, MEGACO, MGCP or C++ library interfaces to control the announcement server features

Announcements

  • Announcements stored locally and/or on an external HTTP server
  • Abstract Audio:
    • Language abstraction: Support for multiple languages (23 languages)
    • Support variables: date, currencies, numbers, etc.
    • Allow user defined abstractions (e.g., by gender, time-of-day, day-of-week, customer, etc.)
  • Aggregated functions to play sequences of messages, collect digits, repeat announcements , variables, handle errors and loop indefinitely
  • Audio Package widely accepted (IETF, ITU, CableLabs, ISC)
    • “Advanced Audio Package” H.248.9 package
    • PacketCable’s ‘Basic Audio Package’
    • MGCP RFC available: RFC 2897
    • Advance Audio Announcements (NetAnn, MSCML, MOML) - SIP support
  • Tools to convert existing announcement libraries to WAV format
  • SIP, MEGACO/H.248, MGCP or AudioCodes Networked API (TPNCP)
  • Powerful Audio Provisioning Server (APS) – provides users the capability to add, delete, and replace audio to the media servers in the network.

Conferencing

  • Mixing and automatic transcoding between codec types
  • Loudest N and preferred speakers
  • Control: Moderator, Active, Passive listener, whisper mode(coaching), mute, “Bip” control (on entry/exit)
  • Independent gain control on all ports (Volume up/down)
  • Automatic gain control
  • DTMF detection and muting
  • Dynamic size configuration
  • SIP, MEGACO, MGCP or TPNCP/API