Multicast Paging Soundpoint

[aklawrence]

I'm trying to test multicast paging and can't tell if everything is correct but basically it isn't working. Here is the simple setup:
Created Ring Group and selected Paging as the strategy and selected Use Multicast
Set IP address to 224.0.0.75 (also tried others), Port 5001 and left codecs and Packet time default.
Log in to Polycom Soundpoint 321 UC 4 and go to Settings->Paging-> and enter the same multicast address in port.
I tried calling the extension of the ring group and the call connects but I don't hear anything on the handset.
If I try *9 and the Soundpoint's extension, the intercom works so I know it is working fine within 3cx and the speaker works.
Is there something I'm missing? Is it correct to simply dial the Ring Group or is there a different feature code to make a multicast page?
Currently running Version 11 SP1

 

[left]

I needed paging as well and did the following:
1) Set up the ring group like you did but did not use Multicast
2) Added the extensions of the phones I needed to be a part of the page under the Ring Group Members "field"

That's it. When you dial the extension of the ring group, it goes to the intercom on those phones. Yealink T38G phones but I don't see why your phones would be different.

Adam
LeftClickHere.com

 

[craigreilly]

Multicast Paging is far superior especially when you get a lot of phones. Imagine trying to intercom 100+ phones all at once - the latency in connecting and the phones answering. The T38's should have this by early 2013.

aklawrence - Does the phone allow you to create a dss key button for feature MultiCast Page? If so, try setting that up and see if it works.
The Polycom probably has a preferred Codec for Multicast paging as well.

 

[netswork]

On the 450's the default mcast address is 224.000.001.116 port 5001.

You can enable multicast/push to talk on the phone and it turns on a new paging soft key. If you enable this on all the phones it works. I have not tried to configure the multicast paging in 3cx for this function and I have yet to figure out how to turn on the push to talk via the provisioning file.

 

[aklawrence]

Well something is definitely bizarre about how the multicast paging is working. I've been killing myself trying to figure out why some phones would work and others wouldn't. What I'm seeing is that the first issue did seem to be a codec problem. Switching the Codec option in the Multicast options to G729 seems to work for the Polycom 321 and 331 (as well as Snom PA1). The crazy thing is that I don't think it's the multicast that is actually working.
I originally set this paging group up with a selection of phones and not as multicast. When you enable the option for Multicast, the group membership option disappears because it isn't supposed to matter as long as the handset is listening to that multicast address. However, when calling the Ring Group, only handsets that had originally been added to the non-multicast paging group would receive the page.
I then assumed something was cached or not working correctly and might need a restart of a service or something, which I can't practically do while the system is in use. I figured the next best way to test would be to create a brand new ring group that was setup in multicast mode without ever having members assigned. When I call the new Ring Group, I just receive a busy signal which doesn't make sense because this is supposed to broadcast to a multicast channel.
I was able to reconfirm the bug because if I unselect the multicast option, add an extension to the normal paging ring group and then re-enable multicast, the ring group starts working. My guess is though that it's not using multicast at all and only unicast.
As craigreilly mentioned in his post, this is not ideal for a large number of handsets (we will have approximately 50-60).
I'm not sure if there's an easy way to confirm whether these pages are in fact going out over the multicast address other than wireshark and capturing the traffic.
Also, the Polycoms do have a way to setup paging to different polycom handsets but that limits things from Polycom to Polycom only. We also use Snom and other systems throughout our environment. Plus, it eliminates the ability to dial in from an outside line and send a page.