H.323

General Information

Version 3.5 of the Marratech Manager includes the ability to call out to a Video Conferencing H.323 station. When used, the Marratech Manager will connect to H.323 end point and the latter will show up as a participant in the Marratech Meeting. A Marratech Manager H.323 Data Sheet is available here. Here are some general technical notes about H.323: H.323 Limitations The H.323 bridge uses ports 5060 to 5160 and 53000 to 53099 by default. Choose a port span that does not conflict with other SIP or h.323 lines. These ports must be configured in your firewall. When using H.323 remember that traffic between the Manager and the H.323 end point is NOT encrypted. Only one H.323 call can be placed per server at a time, unless a license key with unlimited H.323 is installed. To call to a H.323 station that has public address, a public address will be needed for your Marratech Manager. A 3.5 Manager placed behind a NAT may not be able to place an H.323 call to a end point outside the NAT. H.261 and PCMU are the only video / audio standards supported. Transcoding will take place in the Manager. Calling an MCU has been successfully tested but is not supported. Testing has shown that success rates are higher when using the latest firmware in your H.323 end points. Our H.323 solution is based on an open source H.323 project. Therefore, the compatibility list will be very similiar. For instance, there are compatibility problems with Polycom FX. Please consult our user forum and share your experiences in using our H.323 call out capabilities.

 

Setup

Before activating the H.323 module, you will need to have created a Dial Out Gateway, as indicated in the SIP section of this manual. Once such a module has been added, simply click on the Dial Out menu on the left side of the admin page.

From there, select Add Line. Fill in the required information, ignoring the fields marked with [SIP]. The call port range for a H.323 line uses TCP ports and the data port range uses UDP ports (compared to a SIP line where both are UDP).

Here is an example of a typical H.323 line setup:

 

Using H.323

With the setup phase complete, you can now place calls to an H.323 end point. Here is how:

Join a meeting room. From the welcome page, type in the address of a H.323 end point. And select the H.323 line you have created. Press Dial.

After the call is connected, the H.323 end point will become a participant in the Marratech e-meeting. You will see and hear the external H.323 participant. The external H.323 participant will hear everyone, but will only see the Marratech participant that is actively speaking, using the same rules as Video Follows Audio in the client. An H.323 call will require a seat just as for normal Marratech users. I.e. if a seats license model is utilized, and no more seats are available then no call can be placed.

• Line prefix
• Append room suffix setting
• the H.323 Room suffix available in the meeting room settings.

• if Line prefix' is se to '500', all rooms using this line will be registered at the gatekeeper with the id '500'.

• If Room suffix is set to '72' and Line prefix is left empty this specific room using this line will be registered with the id '72'.
• If Line prefix is set to '500' and Room suffix is set to '72' and the Append room suffix is selected the registration id will be the concatenation of the
  Line prefix and the Room suffix, '50072'.

• if Line prefix is not specified, the id is derived from the room only.
• if Line prefix is specified but append room suffix is not selected the id will consist of the Line prefix only.
• if Line prefix is specified and the append room suffix is selected, the id will consist of the Line prefix with an id of the room appended.
• the id fetched from the room is by default the id of the room assigned to it when it was created, or if the Room suffix is set this will be used instead.

Dial in

Marratech Manager 3.5 introduces the ability to Dial In from an H.323 end station into a Marratech Manager hosted meeting. Before doing so, please configure your Manager in the same manner as for Dial out.

1. Each room that to be enabled for dial-in must be assigned a unique suffix. This suffix will be the last digit, or digits, of the E.164 number dialed to reach the room.
2. Go the ‘E-MEETINGS’-panel and select ‘Rooms’ from the submenu. For each room click the ‘Modify’-button, enter the suffix in the ‘Room E164 suffix’-field and click the ‘Modify room’-button at the bottom of the page.
3. Add a H.323 line with dial-in capabilities:
• Go to the ‘DIAL’-panel and select ‘Add line’ from the submenu. Enter the following parameters in the ‘Add new line’-from and click the ‘Add line’-button at the bottom of the page. Fill in the following:
  Type: H323 line
  Name: H.323 - Gatekeeper@<gatekeeper address>
  [H323] Gatekeepe : <gatekeeper address>[:port]
  [H323] Line E164 prefix : <line prefix>
  [H323] Append room E164 suffix : yes
  [H323] Rooms for dial-in: <all rooms assigned a suffix>
  Multiple calls: yes
  
4. The gatekeeper address is given as a dotted decimal ip number. An optional gatekeeper port can be set as well.The port is by default set to 1719.
5. When a room is registered at the gatekeeper its E.164 number will be built using the line prefix with the room suffix appended.
   
   For example, if you have the number series 51500 through 51509 to be assigned to the Marratech Manager you may select 5150 as line prefix and use the 0 through 9 series when assigning suffix for rooms.
   
6. For room selection click the ‘Select rooms...”-button. Mark all rooms in the text area under ‘Available’, click the select button marked ‘>>’ and then finish by clicking the ‘Confirm selection’-button.
   
7. Restart the Manager.
8. Verify registration status by checking the ‘info’-pages.