Summary of CUCM Supported Codecs

I just thought to put a summary list of CUCM supported codecs

• G.711: It has two versions, A-Law & Mu-Law. You can disable CUCM support for G711 using the service parameter G.711 mu-law Codec Enabled or G.711 a-law Codec Enabled
• G.722: This is wideband codec that is always preferred by CUCM over G.711, unless Advertise G.722 Codec enterprise parameter is Disabled.

Enterprise Parameter Setting	Phone (Product-Specific) Parameter Setting	Phone Advertises G.722
Advertise G.722 Codec Enabled	Use System Default	Yes
Advertise G.722 Codec Enabled	Enabled	Yes
Advertise G.722 Codec Enabled	Disabled	No
Advertise G.722 Codec Disabled	Use System Default	No
Advertise G.722 Codec Disabled	Enabled	Yes
Advertise G.722 Codec Disabled	Disabled	No

When users use a headset that supports wideband, they can enable Wideband Headset feature from the phone settings for better quality. On the phone navigate to Settings > User Preferences > Audio Preferences > Wideband Headset.

Enabling the Advertise G.722 Codec parameter causes interoperability problems with UCCX CAD, call park and ad hoc conferences. Keep it disabled.

You can disable CUCM support for G722 from the service parameter G.722 Codec Enabled. If G722 Codec is disabled, Advertise G722 Codec enterprise parameter is ignored

• G.722.1: A low-complexity wideband codec operating at 24 and 32 kb/s.
• G.723.1: Low-bit-rate codec with 6.3 or 5.3 kb/s compression for Cisco IP Phone 12 SP+ and Cisco IP Phone 30 VIP devices.
• G.728: Low-bit-rate codec that video endpoints support.
• G.729: Low-bit-rate codec with 8-kb/s compression. The codec has 4 versions:
• G729: original codec. Uses high-complexity algorithm
• G729A or A annex: medium complexity variant of G.729 and it is compatible with G729. It is less complex but has slightly lower voice quality
• G729B or B annex: G729 with VAD and not compatible with the previous ones. It requires a transcoder
• G729AB: G729A with silence suppression and only compatible with G729B.

IOS can distinguish between all versions of G729 while CUCM can't. CUCM will treat G729r8 and G729ar8 equally. Similarly, CUCM will treat G729br8 and G729abr8 similarly.

By default Annex-B support is turned off in IOS and CUCM.

To enable AnnexB in IOS,

voice service voip

 sip

  g729 annexb-all

To enable AnnexB in CUCM, set the service parameter 'Strip G.729 Annex B (Silence Suppression) from Capabilities' to False

v=0

o=CiscoSystemsSIP-GW-UserAgent 2385 707 IN IP4 10.170.170.2

s=SIP Call

c=IN IP4 10.170.170.2

t=0 0

m=audio 29384 RTP/AVP 18 8 0 19

c=IN IP4 10.170.170.2

a=rtpmap:18 G729/8000

a=fmtp:18 annexb=yes

a=rtpmap:8 PCMA/8000

a=rtpmap:0 PCMU/8000

a=rtpmap:19 CN/8000

a=ptime:20

• GSM: GSM enables the MNET system for GSM wireless handsets to operate with CUCM. Assign GSM devices to a device pool that specifies 13 kb/s as the audio codec for calls within the GSM region and between other regions. Depending on device capabilities, this includes GSM EFR (enhanced full rate) and GSM FR (full rate).
• L16-Uncompressed: 16-bit linear pulse-code modulation (PCM) encoded audio with a 16-kHz sampling rate provides wideband audio at 256 kb/s.
• AAC-LD (mpeg4-generic): Super-Wideband codec
• AAC-LD (MP4A-LATM):  Super-Wideband codec

AAC-LD (mpeg4-generic) and AAC-LD (MPA4-LATM) are not compatible

• iSAC
• This is a wideband codec uses an adaptive bit rate of between 10 and 32 kb/s
• Each packet can contain 30 or 60 msec of payload). It has better tolerance to jitter and packet loss compared to G722 at half the bit rate

It has two modes:

• Adaptive: In this mode the target bit rate is adapted to give a bit rate corresponding to the available bandwidth on the channel. The available bandwidth is continuously estimated at the receiving iSAC and signaled in-band in the iSAC bit stream
• Independent: In this mode target bit rate has to be provided to iSAC prior to encoding; the target bit rate can be changed over the time of the call.

• iLBC: iLBC provides audio quality between that of G.711 and G.729 at bit rates of 15.2 kbps (38-bytes or 20msec) and 13.3 kbps (50 bytes or 30 msec). iLBC handles lossy networks in better way than G729 because it treats each packet independently. G729 depends on the previous packet to handle packet loss, jitter and delay which doesn't tolerate well in lossy networks.

Codec	Complexity	Protocol Support	Device Support
G711	Low	All	All
G722	High	SIP, H323, SCCP MGCP isn't supported	All
G722.1	Low	SIP and H323	All
G729	G729A & AB are medium G729 & G729B are high	All	All
iLBC	High	SIP, SCCP, MGCP H323 Slow Start H323 Inbound Fast Start Only (Outbound Fast Start not supported)	All
LATM	High	SIP	Video Endpoints and CUBE are supported RSVP is supported Xcoder isn't supported
iSAC	High	SIP and SCCP	CUBE and new endpoints are supported (7945/65 aren't supported) Media resources aren't supported