Dial Plan Implementation

The dial plan is a table on the Management Portal that determines the endpoint (either a SIP-enabled phone or gateway) callers reach when dialing a number in the network. Implementing the dial plan also involves specifying the following:

•Security settings for endpoints

•Conditional call forwarding

•Digit stripping and prefixing

Dial Plan Concepts

A dial plan is like a tree in which a call travels from the trunk to a specific leaf. When the caller dials a phone number, each digit in the phone number selects the next branch.

The following example shows part of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), which is the dial plan of the United States.

0 1 1 x x x ... - international

1 x x x x x x ... - national

8 0 0 ... - toll free

9 0 0 .. - premium rate services

9 1 1 - emergency

* X X - telco services, such as *69 - return call

This plan allows dialing the following:

•An international number of arbitrary length after 011.

•An eleven-digit national number starting with 1 (1 + three-digit area code + seven-digit local number).

•A seven-digit local number (without country and area codes) beginning with the digits 2 through 8.

Companies using a private telephone network called a private branch exchange (PBX) often achieve short (3-4 digit) extension number dialing by prefixing the PSTN with the number 9, allowing the PBX to use digits 1 through 8 as the first numbers in extensions.

Dial Plan Caveats

When creating a dial plan:

•Do not use the same number twice.

•Your Ivanti Voice license determines the number of endpoints you can use. If you configure endpoints past your limit, an error generates if you try to use them.

•Extensions and trunk/gateway prefixes do not need to be numerical, but most of the currently produced SIP devices make it easier to dial numeric strings. That is why in a typical case, you create numerical extensions and prefixes.

Phone Entries

The Regular Phones page lets you associate an extension with each softphone and SIP-enabled desktop phone in your Ivanti Voice environment. Each association appears as one entry on the page.

When adding phone entries:

•Do not use the same number twice.

•Each entry must have a unique IP address.

•Do not use a number that starts with another number in its entirety. For example, do not use the extensions 123 and 12345 in the same dial plan. If you do, the extension 12345 would not be accessible by dialing directly because the SIP Soft Switch would connect the call with extension 123. You can, however, use the extensions 1231 and 12345.

In addition to adding dial plan entries on the Regular Phones page, Ivanti Voice automatically adds dial plan entries you create in the Extension field on the Users page (Management Portal > System Configuration > Users), and uses the username and password you assign as the SIP Soft Switch authentication username and password for the entry. You can later reconfigure a user’s SIP Soft Switch authentication username and password without affecting the user’s Ivanti Voice username and password, and vice-versa, enabling you to change the SIP Soft Switch authentication username or password for the dial plan entry without changing the user’s Ivanti Voice username or password.

Your Ivanti Voice license determines the number of extensions you can use. If you attempt to configure extensions past your limit, an error generates if you try to use them.

The following options are organized into tabs that you can edit for each phone entry.

Add and Delete Phone Entries

To add phone entries:

1.On the Management Portal menu window, click System Configuration > SIP Soft Switch > Phones. The Regular Phones page opens.

2.Configure the following fields at the bottom of the list:

•Extension - The phone extension you want to use for the phone entry.

•Static IP or name - The static IP address or resolvable domain name of the phone entry. The SIP Soft Switch sends calls to this address when a caller in your telephone network dials the number you entered in the Extension field.

•Static SIP Port - The static port number for the phone entry. The default value is 5060.

•Display Name - An optional description of the phone entry, such as the name of the person who uses this phone. This name appears on the phone display (if there is one). This is also the caller name.

•License Type - Named will permanently assign an extension license to this entry; Concurrent will check out the license after the phone has registered with the SIP Soft Switch; Disabled will disable the entry in the dial plan.

•G.729 License - Controls allocation of G.729 codec licenses for IPCM softphones only (Dashboard and Communicator). Named will permanently assign a G.729 codec license to this entry; Concurrent will check out the G.729 codec license after the phone has registered with the SIP Soft Switch; Disabled will disable use of the G.729 codec for the entry. Also should be used for any 3rd party hard- or softphone.

3.Click the Add button after completing the fields. The page refreshes, displaying the entry in the table. Click the extension link to configure the options on the tabs.

To Delete Phone Entries:

•Click the red x icon on the Phones page to delete phone entries from your dial plan.