[cisco-voip] So is the Lifesize H.320 gateway actually a 3545?

[Robert Kulagowski]

Bernhard Albler wrote:
> Well, they actually are both OEMs, namely from radvision. Look at the scopia platform...
> 
> really nice hardware in my opinion btw.

We're looking at deploying video more widely this year, and I'm still 
trying to wrap my head around certain concepts.  Like why CM can't act 
as a full gatekeeper and instead it looks like I need an external one.

Our existing video gear is primarily Polycoms EX and FX with 3xBRI 
(obtained from the phone company).  I've messed around a little bit with 
setting them up as a H.323 device in CM 4.1.3, but that will probably 
only let me use IP internally, because I would still need something to 
go H.323 to H.320 to connect to the outside world.  But associating them 
with CM should allow me to use our internal dial-plan, correct?

The other "Crap, now I need another box" aspect of this is that IOS 
almost has a useful feature where it will do H.320 to H.323, but you 
can't do more than 128K.

Integrating Data, Voice, and Video Services for ISDN Interfaces
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6441/products_feature_guide09186a0080788070.html

Of course, you don't find out that you can't do more than 128K until 
you've been working on it for 5 days with TAC and they finally admit 
that the docs are misleading.

"H.320 calls are limited to 16 B-channels." is what the docs say, except 
they're actually limited to 2 B-channels, so a bit useless.