CUCM 8.5 & Emergency Communication Question

[marcuscastellanos]

Greetings!

We recently upgraded to CuCM 8.5 and Unity Connection 8.5

One of the main things that we are wanting to do with the new version, is develop some type of an emergency communication.

On our old system (CuCM 4.1, Unity 4.1), we would simply Broadcast a Message to everyone, but it's looking like that wont work for us anymore as we want a more direct way to communicate with our users.

I did notice the intercom function on this version, and one question I have is, is there a limit to the number of intercom phones that can be activate at once  ?  I.e if I assign this intercom to 20 phones, can I have one phone send a intercom call to all 20 at once?

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/admin/8_5_1/ccmfeat/fsintrcm.html

If this is a limitation of 1x1 what do y'all use?  in the past we have researched some 3rd party solutions (berbie, ipcelerate) etc, but as always, those cost money, and we are trying to be effective with the product we already have.

Thanks for all the help

-M

[Rob Huffman · Accepted solution]

Hi Marcus,

You are most correct my friend in that Intercom is built on a

1 to 1 rather than 1 to many relationship

One thing to ponder is that when you upgrade to CUCM 9.1 you will

receive free Singlewire InformaCast basic paging solution which sounds

like a cost effective way to go;

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/rel_notes/9_1_1/CUCM_BK_R6F8DBD4_00_release-notes-for-cucm-91_chapter_0100.html

You know the other solutions already so I won't post them up again

Cheers!

Rob

"What you don't have you don't need it now" 

- U2

[marcuscastellanos]

Bummer,

Thanks Rob for a fast response, as per your norm!

-M

[Chris Deren]

M,

I am slightly confused on what you lost with going from Unity to Unity Connection?  If you were using broadcast messaging in Unity that is also available in UCXN.

Chris

[marcuscastellanos]

Chris,

We realize we can still use the broadcast message, but we are noticing that that is not a very effective communication tool for the case of an emergency.  The users would still have to notice the message, and login, and review the message, we are looking for more of a direct communication (Thus the intercom question).

[Chris Deren]

Understood.  The InformaCast is a very good product and will definitely do the job, keep in mind though that the free version supports only 50 users in a group, if you require more you will need to acquire the licensed version.

HTH,

Chris