Polycom, Inc. 21
The Polycom UC Software Big Picture
This section provides an overview of the Polycom UC software and the components that the CX5500
Unified Conference System uses in your network configuration.
The Polycom CX5500 Unified Conference Station supports most of the features of the Polycom UC
Software 5.0.1 release. This administrator’s guide describes the supported features; you can find
additional helpful information about the UC Software 5.0.1 release at the Polycom United
Communications Resource Center.
The UC software supports the deployment of Polycom phones as a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-
based endpoint interoperating with a SIP call server or softswitch.
The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard for
multimedia communications over IP. It is an ASCII-based, application-layer control protocol, defined in
RFC 3261, that you can use to establish, maintain, and terminate calls between two or more endpoints.
Like other voice over IP (VoIP) protocols, SIP is designed to address the functions of signaling and
session management within a packet telephony network. Signaling call information to be carried across
network boundaries. Session management provides the ability to control the attributes of an end-to-end
call.
For Polycom phones to successfully operate as a SIP endpoint in your network, you will require:
● A working IP network
● Routers configured for VoIP
● VoIP gateways configured for SIP
● The latest (or a compatible version) Polycom UC Software image
● An active, configured call server to receive and send SIP messages
For information on IP PBX and softswitch vendors, see the Polycom ARENA VoIP Interoperability
Partners list.
The rest of this section consists of the following sections:
● Understand Polycom UC Software Architecture
To begin setting up your Polycom phones on the network, go to Set Up Your Device Network.
To begin configuring the features available for your Polycom phones, start with the section Set Up Basic
Phone Features.
To Next Page
Loading...
Need help?
General
