What's New With This Release
Branch office gateway deployments have been enhanced with increased support for Local Survivable Processors (LSP) and new bandwidth-conserving improvements to translation file updates. New geographic-specific capabilities now allow a single media server running Communication Manager to support a multinational deployment of media gateways.

Support for the T.38 Fax over IP standard has been added to enable interoperability of fax transmissions over IP in a multi-vendor environment, along with similar capabilities for modem transmissions over IP in Avaya-based communication networks. And for mobility applications, new Extension to Cellular enhancements eliminate the distribution of calls between multiple voice mail systems, allowing users to now check one system for all calls to their extension.

Release Overview
Branch office gateway deployments have been enhanced with increased support for Local Survivable Processors (LSP) and new bandwidth-conserving improvements to translation file updates. New geographic-specific capabilities now allow a single media server running Communication Manager to support a multinational deployment of media gateways.

Support for the T.38 Fax over IP standard has been added to enable interoperability of fax transmissions over IP in a multi-vendor environment, along with similar capabilities for modem transmissions over IP in Avaya-based communication networks. And for mobility applications, new Extension to Cellular enhancements eliminate the distribution of calls between multiple voice mail systems, allowing users to now check one system for all calls to their extension.

Enhancements
Communication Manager 2.1 will operate on the following platforms:

Increased LSP Capacity
LSP capacity now matches H.248 media gateway capacity, providing enterprises with the option to deploy survivable LSPs to every remote branch office location. LSP capacity is increased in Release 2.1 vs. Release 2.0 as follows:

LSP Translation Synchronization
This feature supports the increased LSP capacity by improving the efficiency of transmitting translation file updates. A new file difference mechanism identifies changed records within the translation file and transmits only those changed records when a file synchronization occurs, resulting in a dramatic reduction in bandwidth usage.

Multinational Locations
Multinational location support is designed for Communication Manager solutions running on Linux media servers with gateways distributed across international boundaries. Communication Manager 2.1 uses Location Numbers to identify groups of gateways and IP network regions that share the same time zone, ARS routing, and other characteristics that are typically assigned geographically.

Fields that were previously associated with system parameters have been moved to a new Locations Parameters form. Each Location Parameters form correlates to a Location Code value, allowing the administrator to now specify the following for a location/country:

In addition, Call Detail Recording (CDR) adds new values to the data field to help identify location and destination of calls by location (country from/to, location from/to, timezone from/to). Release 2.1 also adds granular specification of Release 2 Multi-frequency Coded Signaling parameters (R2 MFC), a trunk signaling protocol commonly used in some countries.

License Enforcement Mechanism
If a system has no license installed or a license error (ie. version mis-match, serial number mis-match, license expired, etc), Communication Manager will go into a warning mode (License-Error Mode). During this mode, call processing is supported, a major alarm is declared, and a 30-day countdown timer is invoked. If the timer expires before the license error is corrected, the system enters No License Mode. In this mode, system administration is disallowed and a "LICENSE ERROR" message is shown on telephone displays when calls are initiated. Once dialing of the phone begins, the display and telephone function normally.

T.38 Fax and Modem over IP Support:
T.38 has emerged as the key standard for ensuring that VoIP capable networks can continue to support user requirements for real-time fax communications. T.38 Fax support requires CM 2.1 and the following VoIP Media Processors:

The media processors can be downloaded via firmware with the new functionality, which includes suppport for the ITU-T T.30 protocol. This will allow the gateway to interface with virtually any standard analog fax device. The fax bearer transmission is packetized and sent over IP (UDP) using T.38, with Communication Manager providing the T.38 signaling between gateways over an H.323 IP trunk interface. This feature will interoperate any T.38 enabled gateway, including MultiTech MultiVoIP, Modular Messaging using IP trunk interface with QSIG, and IP Office.

The Modem over IP feature will interoperate within an Avaya network. Modem rates supported include V.34, V.90, and V.92. The feature also supports TDD/TTY with US encoding (45.45 Baudot), TDD/TTY with UK encoding (50 Baudot), and STU (Secure Telephone Units).

New Extension to Cellular (Release 5.1) enhancements: