Call Admission Control

Use call admission control to maintain a desired level of voice quality over a WAN link. For example, you can use call admission control to regulate the voice quality on a T1 line connecting your main campus and a remote site.

Call admission control regulates voice quality by limiting the number of calls that can be active on a particular link at the same time. Call admission control does not guarantee a particular level of audio quality on the link, but it does allow you to regulate the amount of bandwidth consumed by active calls on the link.

There are two types of call admission control that you can use with Cisco CallManager:

Locations

The Locations feature, available in Cisco CallManager, provides call admission control for centralized call processing systems. A centralized system uses a single Cisco CallManager to control all the locations. Figure 4-1 illustrates call admission control using locations. For more information, see the "Location" section.

Figure 4-1: Call Admission Control Using Locations in a Centralized System

Gatekeepers

An H.323 gatekeeper, also known as a Multimedia Conference Manager (MCM), provides call admission control in a distributed system with a separate Cisco CallManager or Cisco CallManager cluster at each site. Figure 4-2 illustrates call admission control using gatekeeper technology. For more information on using gatekeeper technology, contact Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC).

Figure 4-2: Call Admission Control Using H.323 Gatekeeper Technology in a Distributed System

Table of Contents