Voice over IP First-Step

Voice over IP First-Step

Released December 2005
Publisher(s): Cisco Press
ISBN: 9781587201561

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Book description

Your first step into the world of IP telephony

  • No IP telephony experience required

  • Includes clear and easily understood explanations

  • Makes learning easy 

Your first step to the world of IP telephony begins here!

  • Learn how voice and data communications merge in voice-over-IP technology

  • Use this reader-friendly guide to understand the benefits of this technology

  • Explore real-life applications and theories through case studies in every chapter

Welcome to the world of voice over IP

We use either a telephone or e-mail for much of our day-to-day communication. Today, these two worlds are merging, and companies can place phone calls over their existing data network infrastructures using a technology called voice over IP (VoIP).

No prior experience with VoIP technology is required

Voice over IP First-Step is anyone’s introduction to the world of VoIP networks. The concepts in this book are presented in plain language, so you don’t need in-depth background knowledge to comprehend the technologies covered. If you work with data networks, if you work with telephony networks, if you’re a home user interested in how VoIP can reduce your monthly phone bill, or if the concept of VoIP simply intrigues you, this book is for you.

Table of contents

  1. Copyright
    1. Dedications
  2. About the Author
  3. About the Technical Reviewers
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Icons Used in This Book
  6. Introduction
    1. How This Book Is Organized
    2. Who Ought to Read This Book
    3. Stuff You’ll Find in This Book
    4. For More Information. . .
  7. 1. Touring the History Museum of Telephony
    1. Dissecting a Telephony Network
    2. The Public Switched Telephone Network: The Phone System That You Grew Up With
    3. Private Branch Exchanges: How Big Businesses Talk
    4. Key Systems: How Small Businesses Talk
    5. Ringing, Dial Tone, and Other Bells and Whistles
      1. Supervisory Signaling
        1. Loop Start Signaling
        2. Ground Start Signaling
        3. Ringing
      2. Address Signaling
      3. Information Signaling
    6. Case Study: Your Turn to Put the Pieces in Place
      1. Design Diagram for XYZ Company:
      2. Design Description for XYZ Company:
      3. Rationale for a VoIP Solution:
      4. Suggested Solution
        1. Design Diagram for XYZ Company
        2. Design Description for XYZ Company
        3. Rationale for a VoIP Solution
    7. Chapter Summary
    8. Chapter Review Questions
  8. 2. Making Waves: Turning Your Voice into 1s and 0s
    1. Chopping Your Voice into “Byte”-Size Pieces
    2. Squeezing Your Voice into a Smaller Package
    3. Deciding How Much Bandwidth Is Enough
      1. Step 1: Calculating Erlangs
      2. Step 2: Determining the Grade of Service
      3. Step 3: Calculating the Number of Required Trunks
      4. Step 4: Calculating the Amount of Required Bandwidth
    4. Case Study: Your Turn to Choose the Bandwidth
      1. Case Study Suggested Solution
    5. Chapter Summary
    6. Chapter Review Questions
  9. 3. Paving the Pathway to a Voice over IP Network
    1. Competing with the Reliability of Existing Phone Systems
    2. Replacing PBX Trunks: Out with the Old, In with the New
    3. Connecting a Router to a Phone Line
    4. Connecting a Router to a Digital Circuit
    5. Voice over IP in the Home
    6. Case Study: Your Turn to Put the Pieces of the Puzzle Together
      1. Design for XYZ Company:
      2. Suggested Solution
    7. Chapter Summary
    8. Chapter Review Questions
  10. 4. Meet the “Brain” of the Voice over IP Network
    1. Replacing Your Old Phone Switch with Cisco CallManager
    2. There Is Power in Numbers: Grouping Cisco CallManagers Together
    3. Designers’ Challenge: Placing Cisco CallManagers in the Network
      1. Single-Site Model
      2. Centralized Call Processing Model
      3. Distributed Call Processing Model
      4. Clustering over the WAN Call Processing Model
    4. Setting Guidelines for Who Can Make Calls
    5. Replacing Old Phones with IP Phones
      1. Inline Power
      2. CODECs
      3. Additional Switch Port
      4. XML Support
      5. Auxiliary VLAN
      6. Softkeys
      7. Line/Speed Dial Buttons
      8. Cisco 7902G
      9. Cisco 7905G and 7912G
      10. Cisco 7910G+SW
      11. Cisco 7940G and 7960G
      12. Cisco 7970G and 7971G-GE
      13. Cisco IP SoftPhone
      14. Cisco IP Communicator
      15. Cisco 7920
      16. Cisco 7936
    6. Selecting Features for IP Phones
      1. Conferencing
      2. Annunciator
      3. Transcoding
      4. Music on Hold
      5. Speed Dial and Abbreviated Dial
      6. Auto Answer
      7. Call Forward
      8. Direct Transfer
      9. Call Join
      10. Immediate Divert to Voice Mail
      11. Multilevel Precedence and Preemption
      12. Malicious Call Identification
      13. Call Park
      14. Call Pickup/Group Call Pickup
      15. Call Back
      16. Barge and Privacy
    7. The Cone of Silence: Securing Voice
      1. Identity
      2. Integrity
      3. Privacy
    8. A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words: Adding Video to Voice Calls
    9. Cisco CallManager in the “Express” Lane
    10. Case Study: Your Turn to Do an Extreme Phone System Makeover
      1. Design Diagram for XYZ Company:
      2. Design Description for XYZ Company:
      3. Suggested Solution
    11. Chapter Summary
    12. Chapter Review Questions
  11. 5. Speaking the Gateways’ Languages
    1. Gateway Protocols: The Languages of Love
    2. The Tried and True Language: H.323
      1. H.323 Pieces and Parts
        1. Terminals
        2. Gateways
        3. Gatekeepers
        4. Multipoint Control Unit
      2. H.323 Call Types
        1. H.323 Gateway-to-Gateway Calls
        2. H.323 Calls Using a Gatekeeper
    3. Cisco’s Very Own: MGCP
      1. MGCP Components
        1. Endpoints
        2. Gateways
        3. Call Agents
      2. MGCP Concepts
        1. Call
        2. Event
        3. Signal
      3. Making the MGCP Network More Fault Tolerant
    4. The New Kid on the Block: SIP
    5. Case Study: Your Turn to Be Trilingual
      1. Design Description for XYZ Company:
      2. Suggested Solution
    6. Chapter Summary
    7. Chapter Review Questions
  12. 6. Why Quality Matters
    1. Too Many Swimmers in the Bandwidth Pool
    2. Being Politically Incorrect: Treating Special Traffic in a Special Way
      1. Classification
      2. Marking
      3. Congestion Management
      4. Congestion Avoidance
      5. Policing and Shaping
      6. Link Efficiency
    3. Giving Voice Top Priority
      1. Default
      2. Expedited Forwarding
      3. Assured Forwarding
      4. Class Selector
    4. Feeling a Little Congested?
      1. First-In, First-Out (FIFO) Queuing
      2. Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ)
      3. Priority Queuing (PQ)
      4. Class-Based Weighted Fair Queuing (CB-WFQ)
      5. Low Latency Queuing (LLQ)
      6. Catalyst-Based Queuing
      7. Throwing Packets out the Window
      8. Random Early Detection (RED)
      9. Weighted RED (WRED)
      10. Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN)
    5. Setting Speed Limits on Traffic
      1. Shaping Frame Relay Networks
    6. Doing More with Less (Bandwidth)
    7. Automatically Configuring QoS with AutoQoS
    8. Case Study: Your Turn to Use Your New “Quality of Service” Tools
      1. QoS Recommendation for XYZ Company:
      2. Suggested Solution
    9. Chapter Summary
    10. Chapter Review Questions
  13. 7. VoIP Supporting Roles
    1. Leave a Message at the Beep: the Cisco Answer to Unified Messaging
      1. Which Came First, the Voice Mail System or the CCM?
      2. One-Stop Messaging
      3. Advanced Messaging with a PBX
    2. Have Your People Call My People: Creating a Conference Call
    3. Your Call Is Very Important to Us: The Cisco Answer to Call Centers
      1. Cisco IPCC Express Edition
      2. Cisco IPCC Enterprise Edition
    4. Case Study: Your Turn to Pick Add-On Features
      1. Design Description for XYZ Company:
      2. Suggested Solution
    5. Chapter Summary
    6. Review Questions
  14. A. Answers to Chapter Review Questions
    1. Chapter 1
    2. Chapter 2
    3. Chapter 3
    4. Chapter 4
    5. Chapter 5
    6. Chapter 6
    7. Chapter 7
  15. B. Next Steps: Where Do I Go From Here?
    1. Basic Router and Switch Configuration
    2. IP Telephony Certifications
  16. Glossary A

Product information

  • Title: Voice over IP First-Step
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: December 2005
  • Publisher(s): Cisco Press
  • ISBN: 9781587201561