An Introduction to Megaco/H.

248
Tom Taylor taylor@nortelnetworks.com

Media Gateway Control

References for Megaco/H.248 RFC 2805 -- requirements RFC 3015 (Megaco) or ITU-T Rec. H.248 H.248 Annexes F to K History and tutorial: T. Taylor, "Megaco/H.248: A New Standard For Media Gateway Control", IEEE Communications Magazine, October 2000.

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Media gateway control vs. call signalling

SG SIP-T, ISUP in H.323, Q.BICC MGC SIP SIP User Agent PSTN Gateway control protocol H.323 call signalling PSTN Gateway control protocol H.323 Endpoint MG Call signalling Media gateway control signalling Media flows
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MGC

SG

MG

Gateway control family tree

IPDC SGCP Early 1998

ASPEN MDCP MGCP (I-RFC 2705) Late 1998

Megaco/H.248

1999 (Standard in 2000)

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Gateway control functions

Connection Bearer Mediation Media Transcoding Events and Signals

Context

Terminations The context supports multiple media streams if required for multimedia service.
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Basic concepts
Connection model: terminations,
streams, and the context

Termination properties: descriptors Context properties Message structure: transactions, actions,

and commands

Event and signal processing Packages

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Media flow connections

Connections achieved by placing two or more
terminations into a common context.

Context viewed as mixing bridge Termination = source or sink of media flows provisioned vs. ephemeral terminations provisioned terminations reside in NULL context when not active Flows specified by stream common streamID implies connected flows default streamID = 1 to simplify audio-only operation Transport, medium, encoding/decoding specified
per stream at each termination
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Context example: basic call

Medium=audio, T1 Mode=sendReceive T2

Medium=audio,

Mode=sendReceive

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Context example: multimedia

Stream=1, medium=audio

T1

T2 Stream=1, medium=audio

T3 Stream=2, medium=video

Stream=2, medium=video

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Descriptors
Properties of terminations are organized
syntactically into descriptors
basic ones are Termination State, Media, Events, and Signals descriptors Media descriptor actually composed of other descriptors: Stream descriptors, which in turn contain LocalControl, Local, and Remote descriptors

Default property values can be

configured in the MG

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Context properties
currently three properties can be specified for a
context

more could be added in the future topology descriptor allows detailed specification
of connectivity between individual pairs of terminations

useful for legal interception priority flag can guide MG's allocation of scarce
resources

emergency flag can indicate contexts which must

be maintained and restored in the event of failures

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Null context and ROOT termination

Null context introduced as a convention
where persistent terminations are held when they are not in a real context

When terminations are returned to the

null context, they take on their configured default property values.

ROOT termination represents the MG

itself
useful for specifying properties of the MG as a device, and to refer to the MG in commands like AuditCapability and ServiceChange

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Message structure
Megaco/H.248 message Header Transaction Transaction ... Transaction Req or Reply Req or Reply Req or Reply Trans Hdr Action ... Action

Ctx Hdr Ctx Properties Command ... Command

Cmd Hdr Descriptor ... Descriptor

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Commands
Megaco/H.248 provides the following
commands

For termination manipulation: Add,

Subtract, Move, Modify

For event reporting: Notify For management: AuditCapability,

AuditValue, ServiceChange

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Events
Events are detected at the MG and
reported to the MGC
example: in-band signalling

MGC controls what events it wants to

learn about at any given time
sets the termination Events descriptor

Events can have side effects

stop playout of signals start new signals automatically update the set of events of interest

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Signals
Signals cause things to happen on
terminations
play a tone, display text, ...

Specified in the Signals descriptor for a

termination

MGC can specify duration of signal

ahead of time or signal can play until explicitly stopped

Signals stop playing when any event is

detected unless MGC says otherwise.

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Packages
Add detailed content to the protocol
all events, signals, and statistics are specified in packages can also specify additional properties

Package definition a continuing process

being created by multiple standards bodies private packages also allowed

Packages can inherit from and extend

other packages.

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Example message flow

PSTN MGC MG Destination 1. IAM 2. ADD (trunk, send only);ADD(RTP,both) 3. Reply 4. INVITE (local SDP) 5. 180 Ringing (remote SDP) 7. ACM 6. MODIFY (RTP, remote SDP) 8. Reply

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Example message flow (2)

PSTN MGC MG 10. 200 OK 11. ANM 12. MODIFY (trunk, both) 13. Reply 14. ACK 15. BYE 17. SUBTRACT (trunk), SUBTRACT (RTP) 18. Reply 19. 200 OK
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Destination

16. REL

20. RLC

Sample message (long text form)

MEGACO/1 <MGC1.gz.cn> Transaction=1432 { Context=$ { ADD=Ckt54/20 { Media= { LocalControl={mode=sendonly}, Local={ v=0 c=TDM NUL xxxx m=audio 0 31kHz/I230 basic },
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Sample message (long text form) continued

Remote={ v=0 c=TDM NUL xxxx m=audio 0 UDI/I230 basic }} }}}

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Sample message, compact text form

!/1 <MGC1.gz.cn> T=1432{C=${A=Ckt54/20{M={ O={MO=so},L={ v=0 c=TDM NUL xxxx m=audio 0 31kHz/I230 basic },R={ v=0 c=TDM NUL xxxx m=audio 0 31kHz/I230 basic }}}}}
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