What Are the Videoconferencing Requirements?
Let’s first consider the videoconferencing requirement.The design team has
already given you specific requirements for the IP telephony devices, but it is up
to you to decide the optimum conferencing solution.The main requirements are
to be able to support up to 30 users per conference, and support conferences
between sites.
A single MCU can support 15 multimedia participants at 128 Kbps; therefore,
to support 30 participants you require at least two. It would be possible to fulfill
their requirements by placing two MCUs at the headquarters. However, as each
conference participant requires a 128 Kbps data stream, the 512 Kbps link to
remote sites would quickly become saturated. Also, if a conference was being held
within a remote site, all conference traffic would have to cross the WAN link to
the headquarters and back again.Therefore, you would recommend placing a
MCU at each remote site in addition to the two at the headquarters.This would
ensure that all conference traffic within an office is kept local, and only one data
stream exists between MCUs, saving valuable WAN bandwidth.