Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CallManager)

This Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document clarifies the codec support for some of the most common IP Telephony Server solutions and provides a consolidation of codec support information in one location.

A. The Cisco WAVE driver included with the Cisco TSP only supports G.711.

A. Cisco CallManager 4.x supports these codecs:

• G.711 a-law and u-law.

• G.723 (only supported by the IP phones VIP30 and SP12+).

• Automated bandwidth selection.

• G.723.1.

• G.729 Annex A and Annex B.

• Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM)-Enhanced Full Rate (EFR) and Full Rate (FR).

• Wideband audio - proprietary 16-bit resolution and 16 kHz sampled audio.

A. Cisco Unified Communications Manager 5.x supports the codecs supported by CallManager 4.x and these codecs:

• G.722

• G.722.1

• G.728

Cisco Unified Communications Manager 6.x supports the codecs supported by CallManager 4.x and these codecs:

• G.722

• G.722.1

• G.728

• iLBC

• Advanced Audio CODEC (AAC) for use with Cisco TelePresence devices

A. These codecs are supported by the associated CRA version:

• CRA 2.2.x only supports G.711 u-law.

• Customer Response Solution (CRS) releases up to and including 3.0(2) support G.711 encoding only (a-law and u-law).

• CRS release 3.1(x) also supports G.729 Annex A (G.729A) encoding.

  • Any CRS 3.1(x) system can have either G.711 or G.729 Annex A (G.729A), but not both.

  • Any CRS 3.1(x) system installed that wishes to change to the other encoding must perform a reinstall of the entire system.

• Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR)/Text-to-Speech (TTS) does not work with G.729 Annex A (G.729A) codec. The G.729 Annex A (G.729A) and ASR/TTS are mutually exclusive.

A. These audio codecs are supported for use with all versions of Cisco Unity:

• G.711 u-law and a-law.

• G.729 Annex A (G.729A) at 20 ms packetization rate ONLY. Cisco Unity TAPI Service Provider (TSP) 7.0.3 and later supports g.729a from 10 ms up to 60 ms packetization rate.

• Intel Dialogic OKI ADPCM 8 kHz.

• Intel Dialogic OKI ADPCM 6 kHz.

• GSM 6.10.

In addition, the G.726 codec is supported for use with a Cisco Unity version 4.0(1) or later system that runs Microsoft Exchange and uses the Voice Profile for Internet Messaging (VPIM) networking option.

A. These audio codecs are supported by the Cisco CallManager MOH server:

• G.711 u-law.

• G.711 a-law.

• G.729 Annex A (G.729A).

• Wideband - uncompressed (proprietary 16-bit resolution and 16 kHz sampled audio).

A. Cisco Conference Connection supports G.711 u-law only. You must use a transcoder if you use any other codec.

A. Cisco CallManager Software Conference Bridge supports only G.711 a-law and G.711 u-law.

A. Only G.711 u-law is currently supported.

A. No, Cisco 7940 and Cisco 7960 IP Phones do not support G.729 Annex B when running SIP load. If you need to use 7940 or 7960 IP Phones that run SIP instead of SCCP for some particular reason, you can use a hardware transcoder to support G.729 Annex B out the H.323 trunk.

A. In order to allow your voice mails to be played over the PDA, you can change the record format in unity. You can do this via Tools Depot > Audio Management Tools > Set Record format. This will allow you to change it to gsm 6.10. A restart is required to have this take effect.

A. Cisco Unified Mobility Advantage supports voice messages stored in the G.711 and GSM 6.10 audio formats.