Polycom MGC/MGC+ Unified Conferencing Bridges
Solution Overview
Polycom, Inc. 4750 Willow Road, Pleasanton, CA 94588. 1.800.POLYCOM www.polycom.com
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4:00 pm
Mary needs to leave for the airport. However, she had
scheduled an end of day video call with Bill, Ken and some other
colleagues to give the final nod to the presentation. No problem –
Mary simply joins the call from her cell phone, this time dialing the
ISDN number that is associated with her meeting room, e.g. 678-
740-4445.
That’s the flexibility of on-demand unified conferencing on the MGC –
anytime, anywhere conferencing from any endpoint!
Understanding “Unified Conference Suite” (UCS) on the MGC
The previous scenarios show how easy it is for the end user to concentrate on getting their job done, while taking
advantage of unified conferencing and collaboration application without having to understand the underlying
technology. Simply by dialing a few numbers, or with a simple point and click, Mary and colleagues move from audio
to video – to multipoint – to data sharing – without a thought to the technical details. The MGC handles it all
transparently in the background.
Following is a brief overview on some of the MGC technology that helps makes all this happen. Unified Conferencing
Suite (UCS) is a software application that runs on the MGC/MGC+ platforms, and provides the building blocks of an
easy-to-use conference infrastructure.
There are a number of separate functions within the Unified Conference Suite that can either be used individually or
combined together for a truly powerful conferencing experience. These functions are:
•
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) services for voice and video connections, on IP and ISDN. This enables
the Polycom MGC platform to support many new service developments including:
-
Entry queue / Single number access to all conferences from all networks and media
-
PIN code protection on conferences from all networks and media
-
User controlled conference functions via DTMF e.g.
o
Mute / Unmute, Question & Answer sessions, Voting
-
Chairperson controlled conference functions via DTMF e.g.
o
Mute / Unmute all other participants, control Q+A session, Control voting session, Initiate
secondary dial out to additional users
•
Single Number per Conference – the ability to allocate a single number for all users of a meeting to dial,
rather than having to allocate individual numbers for each site
•
Automatic Rate Detection – the ability to automatically detect and transcode a video connection no matter
what the speed of connection.
•
Dynamic Conference Size – the ability to have an open-ended conference size, rather than having to specify
the exact number of users beforehand.
•
Undefined Participants – the ability to create a conference with generic users rather than having to waste
time specifying the details of every site that will connect
•
Automatic Conference Termination – the ability to automatically terminate a conference and release
resources if no one connects into a meeting or after everyone disconnects.
•
Automatic Conference Extension – the ability to automatically extend a conference beyond its scheduled
duration if resources are available to do so.
