TMS Conference Bandwidth

[awatson20]

In TMS, how does the conference bandwidth setting relate to the configured call rate on an endpoint? If the TMS bandwidth conference setting is set to 512, and endpoints scheduled in a conference are configured for a call rate of 768, will the endpoints be throttled down to 512?

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[Jens Didriksen]

Yes - the conference bw setting overides the connection setting.

So if you had 3 sites, A, B and C and you want A and B to connect at 768, but C to connect at 512, then you would set the conference bw to 768 and specify connection rate for C as 512, unless you add this participant from a phonebook where this rate has already been specified.

/jens

Please rate replies and mark question as "Answered" if applicable.

[awatson20]

Scenario 1:

Site A - call rate set to 768K

Site B - call rate set to 768K

Site C - call rate set to 384K

TMS conference bandiwdth setting is set to 768

Will site C connect at 384K or 768?

Scenario 2:

Site A - call rate set to 768K

Site B - call rate set to 768K

Site C - call rate set to 384K

TMS conference bandiwdth setting is set to 384K

Will site A and B connect at 384K or 768?

Thanks.

[Patrick Sparkman]

Scenario 1:

Will site C connect at 384K or 768?  768k

Scenario 2:

Will site A and B connect at 384K or 768?  384k

As Jens stated in his reply, whatever the conference bandwidth you have set in TMS will override whatever call rate that is set on the codec being called.  Unless that codec happens to be added via a phonebook entry into the conference, than they will use the call rate specificed in the TMS phonebook.

[awatson20]

Will the TMS default bandwidth setting(768) also override the default call bandiwdth setting configured in the VCS Control server?  From testing, it appears that it does.  On our VCS control, the bandwidth setting is configuired for 384K.

All bookings are scheduled through the TMS Scheduler program.

We have locations that have a small WAN connection, and those endpoints are currently configured for 384K.  These units may participate in a multi-point video call with other units at locations that have a higher bandwidth connection to the MCU. 

We simply want the units that have a higher bandwidth connection to connect at 768K, and the endpoints that are on the lower bandwidth connection to connect at 384K.  Is this possible, or do they have to connect at the default conference bandiwdth setting?

Currently, in TMS the conference bandwidth is set to 384K.  We want to change that to 768K for multi-point calls but do not want to adversely impact the site with lower bandwidth. 

[Patrick Sparkman]

That is a good question, and I can for sure say that TMS will not override the call bandwith applied on the VCS level.  If the VCS is configured for 384 on either a zone or link/pipe that the codec is either registered to or has to traverse and TMS tried to intiate the call at 768, it will lower the call to 384.  This happened to me once, one of our endpoints was registered to a zone at a very low call rate and we couldn't figure out why it was calling at the desired rate.

I know from the VCS documentation that if two endpoints that are set to use two different bandwidth rates within the VCS, that when they attempt to connect a call, it will use the lower rate.  Which will affect any TMS conference as long as the bandthwidth settings are enabled in the VCS.  See the VCS documentation for more information on zones, subzones, links and pipes.

[Jens Didriksen]

No, TMS bw settings will not override VCS bw control, it's important not to confuse "requested bw" with "allocated bw".

If the call is set to 768, but the VCS zone has either max bw within zone, or max bw per call within zone etc set to 384, then the requested bw will be 768, and this might be the call rate reported on the end-point and in TMS (I say "might" as I haven't tried it as we have no bw restrictions), but the allocated bw will only be 384 and the call will downspeed to this.

Be very careful though when playing around with the zone and per call bw settings as you might accidenty throttle all calls connecting subsequent to the initialt call. As Patrick said, check the relevant sections in the admin guide.

/jens

Please rate replies and mark question as "Answered" if applicable.

[CSCO11920884]

I have also a question regarding TMS conference scheduling.

I create a conference with 1mbit default callrate, and i.e. 8 endpoints and a mcu has been scheduled in it.

Later when I try to change the default bandwidth to 2mbit I change the conference default bandwidth to 2mibt and also every connection bandwidth for each scheduled codec.

But when TMS connects this conference, each code will be connected with 1mbit.

Only workaround  found out is to delete the conference and reschedule it with default conference bandwidth 2mbit, otherwise it will not connect with the new higher bandwidth.

Anything wrong with the steps i did?