H.323 and MGCP gateways - Prioritizing inbound calls

[kraghavansag]

I have a T1 PRI terminated in a 2821 router. It has a 100 number DID block. There is a H.323 gateway between the router and a IP Fax server. There is also a H.323 gateway to the call manager and also MGCP gateway to the call manager. I want to use some DID numbers for sending it to fax server and some DID numbers to be sent to the CCM for call processing. In this scenario, is it possible to use H.323 for the fax purpose and H.323,MGCP for calls to the CCM? In other words, can a router have both H.323 and MGCP running together where we can say what protocol needs to do what?

[allan.thomas]

There is often a debate for which protocol to choose MGCP or H.323? Although it is possible to configure both on the same gateway, this is strictly for MGCP fallback to SRST.

The key aspects is that with H.323 compared to MGCP, H.323 requires more configuration on the gateway since the gateway must maintain the dial plan and route patterns.

CallManager only sees the router as one gateway. Calls are sent to the gateway but CallManager cannot specify which port the call is sent to.

The CallManager does not even know that multiple ports exist on the gateway

With MGCP however, Cisco CallManager knows and controls the state of each individual port on the gateway.

MGCP allows complete control of the dial plan from Cisco CallManager, and gives the CallManager per-port control of connections to the PSTN.

For these reasons call control requires MGCP or H.323.

Rgds

Allan.