Fallback Call Routing

[angel-moon]

Hello,

a customer has a centralized CM 6.1 install with branch offices all over the state. All outbound calls at the branches go out a local H.323 gateway. For D/R purposes wenever the branches PSTN connections are down we want to route calls automatically back over the WAN and come out the central site's PRI. I know when can do this by using a dial-peer with a hiugher preference for the WAN PSTN calls. The question is what is the best way to go about translating the dialed digits to make the call transparent to the end user? For example, if the CM is in NYC and the branch is in Buffalo then when fall back call routing occurs the end user dial a local call to a Buffalo number but the call gets routed to come out of NYC and is now a long distance call that needs to be dialed differently. What is the best way to go about adding the digits so that the end user doen't know this is happeneing? Also take into account that there are multiple brnaches where the area codes are different than in Buffalo.

Thanks in advance! All replies rated!

[Chris Deren]

Your best bet would be to structure your routing on CM via Route Lists/Route Groups vs dial-peers on the GWs, this way you can easily prefix/strip digits per Route List on the secondary Route Group.

Another option would be to utilize routing rules on the GW, but that may become harder to maintain.

HTH,

Chris

[angel-moon]

Hello Chris,

Thanks for the reply, As far as routing rules go would that be the easier way to go if the envrionment rarely (if ever) changed? Looking for the minimum disruption. They alredy have routing via H.323 and dial-peers in place

Thanks again!

[Chris Deren]

No, route lists/route groups will be a lot easier than the routing rules.

Chris

[angel-moon]

OK. Is that going to require redoing the call routing from the ground up since there is an existing call routing process in place using the dial peers?

[Chris Deren · Accepted solution]

It will require some planning, sure. I am not familiar with your setup and how things were configured, but you will have to plan out which site should proivide redundnacy for which site and configure your route lists accordingly. If for example at site A users dial 7 digits for local calls, and the redundant site is in another city, now you have to prefix the area code to the dialed number so that the call flow is transparent to the end user who is dialing the number. So, I would suggest mapping everything out and go from there.

HTH,

Chris