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Third party call control for use with Prosody media processing platforms
Using Aculab’s SIP service with Prosody X and Prosody S, solution providers can take advantage of a wide range of SIP capabilities, including third party call control using the Aculab SIP Bridge, accessible through the Aculab API, presenting greater flexibility in application design.
SIP adoption is increasing steadily, as expected. Many solution providers are looking to leverage the power and capabilities that SIP can bring – more efficient use of communications hardware and software being a key driver.
Third party call control
Third party call control refers to the ability of an entity, such as an IP PBX, to create and manage a call in which the media actually flows between other entities. SIP facilitates this through its separation of signalling and media; the signalling can be managed by one device while the media is handled by another device. Traditionally, media processing resource board vendors have assumed that the media and signalling will both be terminated in the same place, as is the case for TDM calls, and created products accordingly.
Breaking the mould
Aculab’s SIP implementation, with the inclusion of SIP Bridge, makes it possible to use Aculab’s highly integrated SIP protocol stack in a very powerful manner. For use with both Prosody X and Prosody S, the Aculab SIP Bridge breaks the assumption that the media and signalling will be terminated in the same place, allowing developers to build back-to-back user agents and other third party call control products.
Powerful capabilities
With Aculab’s SIP stack, a call can terminate its RTP media stream either on a media processing resource, such as a Prosody channel, or on an RTP endpoint on a separate device, such as a SIP phone.
In the first instance, applications using media processing resources may be delivered to the caller. For example, IVR services, conferencing or maybe natural language speech applications. In the second, no media processing resources are required, however, the application retains full control of the call.
It is possible to mix the above capabilities within a single call, perhaps using media processing to qualify a caller’s requirements before handing off the call to the contact centre agent who is best able to deal with it. SIP Bridge even includes the capability to bring the media back into the application if, for example, the contact centre agent wishes to record the conversation.
SIP Bridge allows an application to only consume media processing resources when they are required, and to manage many more calls than the total available media processing resource capability. In this environment, the degree of control provided by SIP Bridge is broadly equivalent to the type of third party call control afforded by a TDM PBX with a complex CTI integration. And the benefits of using the Aculab SIP Bridge are available to any solution provider who is building IP applications, which perform functions such as call transfers and call recording.
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