Cisco IP Communications is a comprehensive system of enterprise-class solutions—including IP telephony, unified communications, IP video/audio conferencing, and contact center—that facilitate more engaging and efficient interactions amongst employees, partners, and customers, and provide the foundation for a collaborative workforce. Enabled by Cisco AVVID (Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data), IP Communications solutions dramatically improve operational efficiencies, increase organizational productivity, and enhance customer satisfaction to create an empowered, effective work environment. By promoting greater levels of workforce collaboration, Cisco IP Communications solutions help enterprises exceed customer expectations, outpace the competition, and realize a measurable return on their investments.

The Cisco IP Communications system includes the following primary components:

IP Telephony: With Cisco IP telephony, single-site and multi-site enterprises can use IP as a primary voice path. Cisco IP telephony solutions deliver high-quality IP voice and fully integrated communications.

Unified Communications: Cisco unified communications combines personal productivity management tools-such as unified messaging, rules-based call routing, and speech recognition-to deliver an unprecedented level of communications control.

IP Audio/Video Conferencing: Cisco IP audio and video conferencing solutions help organizations gain a competitive edge by employing the latest advances in computer networking and multimedia.

Contact Center: Cisco contact center solutions combine such services as intelligent contact management, real-time Web collaboration, and e-mail response management with powerful Cisco IP Telephony networking solutions.

Infrastructure: Includes public switched telephone network (PSTN) gateways, analog phone support, and digital signal processor (DSP) farms that can support multiple client types such as hardware phones, software phones, and video devices. Built on the Cisco AVVID network infrastructure, typical products include Cisco voice gateways (non-routing, routing, and integrated), Cisco switches, and voice application systems.

Cisco offers architectural and protocol flexibility, including the choice of H.323 [International Telecommunications Union (ITU): T Recommendation H.323]. The H.323 extension of ITU-T standard H.320 enables videoconferencing over LANs and other packet-switched networks, as well as video over the Internet. Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP) is a protocol for the control of Voice over IP (VoIP) calls by external call-control elements known as media gateway controllers (MGCs) or call agents (CAs). Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), an IETF standard for signaling and call control is also supported. One of the key strategic advantages of Cisco packet telephony solutions is the ability to originate and terminate H.323 and SIP calls on the same Cisco voice gateway on a dial-peer basis The Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP) is used by Cisco IP Telephony for call signaling. SCCP supports IP telephony and can coexist in an H.323 environment. SCCP can co-exist with H.323, MGCP and SIP. Cisco products are positioned to deliver IP Communications with any protocol necessary to achieve the customer’s requirements.