VLAN for voice and data - using IP communicator

[tyeung]

Hi

We are implementing our contact centre on IPCC Enterprise v7.0 and I have the following questions:

a)

The agents will use IP Communicator as phone on their PCs. From the information I've got from an engineer, there will be only 1 VLAN for voice and data since both traffic will originate from 1 NIC, is that correct? I fear we might experience voice quality problem since both traffic will mingle with each other. Is there a solution?

b)

Is silent monitoring feasible when using IP Communicator?

Thanks for help.

Thierry

[trailman73]

yes that will be a problem, unless you have dual NIC's in your machines.

[mibrahim1986]

what would be the solution, if you have dual nics?

is there another way to get the communicator assigned the voice vlan than configuring the port on the switch manualy? because usualy a communicator user will not sit on one specific port.

[CHRIS CHARLEBOIS]

In theory, if the NIC support 802.1q and/or 802.1p, you could enable trust on that port to allow the PC to route voice traffic directly onto the voice VLAN. I say in theory becuase I have never done, nor do I know if IP Communicator will work with the NIC to flag the packets going out. In addition, this creates a potential security hole that could easily disrupt voice traffic.

In a LAN environment, voice can usually work on the same VLAN as data so long as 802.1p (prioritization) is enabled and the voice traffic is limited. The problem becomes the monitoring. Will voice and data on the same VLAN you need to SPAN all traffic to IPCC for monitoring, which probably will be problematic.