Mission Critical Conferencing is a specialized application of audio conference bridge. Such conferencing is routinely used for FAA Air Traffic Control, NASA Rocket Launches, commercial Satellite Launch Control, Transfer Orbit Support Services etc. It allows multiple teams of people located in different parts of the world to quickly and easily interact with each other via ‘always on’ conferences. From their command and control centers, the conference operators can go in and out of one or more conferences simply by pressing key on a keyset or web click/ web touch (with touch sensitive screen) on a web portal. Legacy mission critical conference bridges use monolothic architecture and are based on TDM technology. XOP Networks’ mission critical bridges break new ground with distributed architecture and support both TDM and VoIP technology.
- Support Mission Critical conferencing across TDM and VoIP networks
- Distributed architecture, supports 99.999% availability
- Support legacy Push to Talk handsets, IP phones and soft phones
- Emulate popular keysets via command and control web portal
- Built in ‘presence’ manager indicates availability of the participants to join a conference
- Mission controller can ‘monitor’ audio from multiple conference rooms simultaneously via a command and control web portal
- Mission controller can ‘talk and listen’ into a given conference room via the command and control web portal
- Allow Mission Controller to dial out and pull in additional participants
- Ability to make separate audio recordings – at the individual room level and at the controller level
- Usage reporting and call logs
| Feature | How it works | Benefits |
|---|---|---|
| Command and control (CCVIEW) Web portal for management of mission critical conferences. Emulates functions of popular keysets. | Mission controller can monitor audio from one or more rooms and talk and listen to one room simply by a click on a web portal. Can dial out to external parties and bring them into a conference room. | No need to press mechanical buttons to select between different conference nets – Immune from mechanical failures. Can be accessed from remote PCs connected to the Internet. |
| Separate web portals for USN administrator and Mission Controllers. | System administrator sets up mission critical conference rooms and mission controller stations and their associations via USN web portal. | Mission controllers only need to learn the use of simple command and control web portal. Easy to learn, train and use. |
| Visual indicator showing status of participants in a given room. | Participant status in a given room is displayed with different fonts. Regular text -> Associated Italicized text -> Registered SIP end point Bold text -> actively participating Bold text with green color -> loudest speaker | Mission controllers can quickly ascertain the status of any individual on a given conference net or a conference call. |
| Dial out with ‘Find-you’ capability. | Upon initiation of a dial out the system will dial up to 4 phone numbers for the individual as part of the ‘Find you’ process. | Improves the probability of reaching an out dialed participant. |