Customer network readiness

Make sure your company’s network is ready for voice and video by using the following checklist and guides.

 Download our Customer Network Readiness checklist.

Physical environment requirements

We recommend that you use Cat 5e or better network cables to connect phones, devices, and Edges to your company network.

Most network cables purchased in the last five years are Cat 5e or better. Usually cables have their type printed on them. If the cable does not have the type printed, you can have an electrical contractor test the type of cabling you are using.

To power your phones, you can buy network switches that support Power over Ethernet (PoE).To support the phones you intend to connect to each switch, make sure that your network switches have the needed power. You can find switch power information on the switch itself or on the manufacturer’s website. 

Note: If you do not use PoE network gear, you need power adapters for any physical phones you use.

If you are using more than one Edge appliance, at least plug them into different power outlets. For increased fault tolerance, we recommend different power circuits service the different power outlets. 

Equipment that you deploy in your office needs certain environmental conditions to operate. Check your office before installation to make sure that it meets the requirements. 


Client and provider requirements

Refer to the Genesys Cloud requirements for the minimum technical requirements to run the application.

Some companies install security services on users’ computers. These services include antivirus, firewalls, or intrusion protection. They can block your access to Genesys Cloud. For continued access to Genesys Cloud, we recommend that you directly allow Genesys Cloud connectivity.

You can use your device to allow Genesys Cloud. Your IT administrator can also allow Genesys Cloud connectivity. For a list of the common Genesys Cloud ports, protocols, and destinations see Ports and services.

Work with your SIP trunking provider to ensure that their features meet the following minimum requirements.
We also recommend that customers perform interoperability testing between their Edge and the SIP provider.

  • List IP addresses the carrier will use to source SIP and RTP traffic
  • Recommended SIP Options to each Edge Server for Trunk Failover

Functionality requirements

  • Out-of-Band DTMF (RFC2833)
  • Fax via g.711 pass-though
  • Inbound calls with and without ANI
  • Outbound calls with ANI
  • Early Media
  • Hold Support (re-invite to 0.0.0.0)
  • Incoming call forwarding
  • Always in Audio
  • Service unavailable (503 response from carrier)

SIP/RTP traffic requirements

  • Carrier must allow SIP and RTP traffic from your Edge Appliance IP Addresses
  • Sequential trunk failover is recommended for multi-Edge deployments
  • SIP port 5060 for all inbound/outbound SIP traffic
  • Recommended to use the G.711 Codec for voice traffic inbound and outbound between you and the carrier
  • SIP OPTION requests to primary Edge ONLY

Questions to ask about your SIP provider

  • Does your provider preserve QoS tagging on SIP and/or RTP traffic?
  • What is the maximum calls per second (CPS) that your provider supports on a trunk?
  • What is the maximum number of concurrent calls (CCP) that your provider supports on a trunk?
  • Does your provider support/require SIP authentication?
  • Does your provider have SIP header requirements for network access or billing?
  • What is the SIP provider’s inbound IP addresses?
  • Does your SIP provider require registration to their SIP trunk?
  • What is the inbound protocol the SIP provider is using (IE UDP / TCP / TLS)?
  • Does your SIP provider require a P-Asserted identity?
  • Does your SIP provider require outbound digest authentication?
  • Does your SIP provider support SIP diversion headers?

Connecting your network, clients, and appliances to Genesys Cloud

Genesys Cloud requires a reliable Internet connection. Most Internet availability problems relate to the physical connection between your physical location and your carrier’s network. The industry refers to this connection as the “last mile.” If it is available at your physical location, we recommend that you work with your provider to have a “fully diverse” Internet connection. Diversity ensures that your Internet connectivity has multiple “last mile” paths to connect to different points on your Internet service provider’s network.

Note: Diversity and redundancy are different concepts in the carrier world.

Company firewalls can block network traffic between your users and Genesys Cloud. To ensure continued access to Genesys Cloud, allow Genesys Cloud connectivity on your network firewalls and security devices.

For a list of the common Genesys Cloud ports, protocols, and destinations, see Ports and services.

Private circuit connectivity

Many companies take advantage of private connectivity between their company offices. Private connectivity includes MPLS and point-to-point connections. When using private circuit connectivity for voice and video services, the physical connection between your physical company office and your carrier’s network is a critical component. The industry refers to this connection as the “last mile.”

If it is available at your physical location, we recommend that you work with your provider to have a “fully diverse” private circuit connection. Diversity ensures that your connectivity has multiple “last mile” paths to connect to different points on your provider’s network.

Company private circuit WAN connectivity typically has less network bandwidth than your local office network or LAN. If you plan to pass voice and video over these limited bandwidth circuits, we recommend that you enable Quality of Service (QoS) on them. QoS gives voice and video traffic a higher priority over other network traffic, ensuring a consistent experience for your users. You should work with your private circuit carrier to set up QoS on your circuits.

VPN Connectivity 

Some companies take advantage of Virtual Private Network (VPN) connectivity between their company and remote worker offices. We support Genesys Cloud voice and video running over VPN connections. When using VPNs, make sure to allow all needed Genesys Cloud network ports and protocols on the VPN connections.

For a list of the common Genesys Cloud ports, protocols, and destinations, see Ports and services.

Your LAN is where your physical phones and Edge appliances connect. Speed and duplex mismatches for devices connected to your LAN tend to cause problems with connectivity. Check your network ports and trunks to ensure that they are registering the correct speed and duplex based on the device they connect to. Typical LANs have a speed/duplex of “100/full” or “1000/full” for most of your connected devices.

When running Genesys Cloud real-time communications services over WLAN, we recommend using 802.11n or better wireless hardware. We also recommend operating your wireless network on the 5 GHz band to avoid interference of the signal.

Check your facility for “dead-spots” where the wireless signal is weak. To find “dead-spots,” you can take advantage of various Wi-Fi surveying tools available. Many network services companies can provide a professional site survey of your wireless network.

Get the best Genesys Cloud performance on your network

To make sure that you have the bandwidth to support voice calls on your LAN and WAN consistently, use our network bandwidth calculator 

The calculator requires your maximum concurrent calls from each site within each site group. Concurrent calls include both calls between your internal users and between outside parties. You can usually get this information from your existing telephony provider or legacy PBX.

Notes:
  • Genesys Cloud takes advantage of an adaptive voice codec called OPUS for voice traffic to agent WebRTC phones (and select managed desktop IP Phones). As OPUS is an adaptive codec, it automatically adjusts the sampling rates as network conditions vary. Our engineering team recommends that customers allocate 32– 128 Kbps of bi-directional network voice bandwidth per expected / supported concurrent call. The more network voice bandwidth allocated to calls, the higher the sampling rate, thus the higher the quality. For more information on OPUS support for different phones supported with Genesys Cloud, see Managed phones: models and features matrix.
  • If agents are using phones that do not support OPUS, then a fixed amount of bandwidth per call is required based on the configured codec for those phones (e.g., G.711, G.729, G.722, etc.). Refer to industry standard documentation on the required bandwidth for these codecs.
  • In addition, you must allocate bandwidth for SIP control traffic. We recommend that you allocate 5 % of the high voice bandwidth value for SIP.
  • A single screen recording typically requires 150-250 kbps. Screen resolution and the amount of on-screen movement affect the amount of bandwidth required.
    Each additional monitor may multiply the amount of bandwidth required. For example, 4 monitors could require 4 times as much bandwidth.

Prioritizing voice and video traffic 

To ensure continued quality of your voice and video traffic, give that traffic a higher priority on your network devices than other network traffic. Complete this prioritization, also known as network Quality of Service (QoS), on every network device that handles voice or video traffic.

The network QoS process is different depending on the vendor and model of your network hardware. Refer to the manufacture’s documentation for your specific hardware setup.

For a list of the common Genesys Cloud ports, protocols, and destinations, see Ports and services.

Traffic description Protocol DSCP value
Voice traffic RTP 46 (EF)
Video traffic RTP 34 (AF41)
Signaling traffic SIP 24 (CS3)

Connection Target metric
Client connectivity Less than 1 second round-trip latency and less than 10% packet loss to Genesys Cloud.
Edge connectivity Less than 300 ms round-trip latency and less than 5% packet loss to Genesys Cloud.
External phone calls Less than 150 ms one-way latency, less than 1% packet loss, and less than 150 ms end-to-end between phone and Edge when phone is on WAN/Internet.
Internal phone calls Less than 75 ms one-way latency, less than 1% packet loss, and less than 75 ms end-to-end between phone and Edge when phone is on same LAN as Edge .