Administrator's Guide

Managing multimedia calling
555-233-506330 Issue 5 October 2002
Conferencing . A multimedia conference can consist of multimedia and
voice-only conferees. All multimedia conferees are added to a multimedia
conference by a voice-terminal user on the switch, who acts as the controller of
the multimedia conference. When the controller is a Basic complex voice station,
the controller must remain on the conference until all parties have joined. Once all
endpoints are on the conference, the voice-terminal user may put the call on hold
or drop, if the user wishes.
Video conferees can see only their local video and one other party. If more than
two people are involved in a video conference, the person who is speaking is the
one whose video appears to other conferees. The speaker’s video shows the
previous speaker. This changes dynamically as the speaker changes.
Creating a multi-party video conference
All multimedia conferences must be controlled by a voice phone. Multimedia
conferees may be added by calling the voice phone or by having the voice phone
make a multimedia call to other DVC endpoints. The controller can then
conference together individual parties to create a multimedia conference.
To set up a multimedia conference:
1. Determine who is going to be the conference controller.
2. At the appointed time, the conference controller calls his or her telephone
from the multimedia endpoint by dialing the 1-number extension. Once this
call is established, the controller conferences in other calls as if this were a
voice conference. The controller continues to add conferees in this manner
until all conferees have joined, or until the number of conferees reaches the
administered limit.
3. The conference controller may also add voice or multimedia parties to the
conference spontaneously. The controller hits CONFERENCE, makes a
voice or multimedia call to a new party. To make a multimedia call, the
controller must originate a call using the mm-call button or FAC or the
mm-multinbr button or FAC. After the new party begins alerting, the
controller may hit CONFERENCE to add the party to the existing
conference on hold.
Coverage. Multimedia calls to a Basic mode complex are subject to the same
coverage criteria as voice calls and follow the coverage path administered for the
voice station of the Basic multimedia mode complex.
If a plain voice station or a Basic mode complex is the covering party, the
answering voice station will receive audio only. If all voice stations in the
coverage path have the station screen Early Answer field set to
n and the
originator of the multimedia call was not a local Enhanced mode complex, the
answering station will hear hourglass tone.