Media Gateway Control Protocol

(Media Gateway Control Protocol/MEdia GAteway COntroller) An IP telephony signaling protocol from the IETF. MGCP was the original protocol, which evolved into MEGACO. Both protocols are designed for implementation in IP phones that are lower cost than SIP or H.323 phones. MGCP/MEGACO requires the use of softswitches for call control and more resembles the telephony model of the circuit-switched PSTN than do SIP and H.323. The softswitch is aware of the entire call throughout its duration (it manages state) and enables operator intervention like the PSTN. MCGP/MEGACO is a combination of the SGCP and IPCD protocols, and many devices that implement MGCP/MEGACO also support SIP and/or H.323.

At the IETF, MGCP evolved into MEGACO, while work on MGCP continued at the International Packet Communications Consortium www.packetcomm.org). Network Call Signaling (NCS) is CableLab's version of MGCP, and H.248 is the ITU's version.

MGCP/MEGACO uses "terminations" and "contexts." Terminations are points of connection that are assigned an ID by the media gateway and can be permanent or ephemeral (temporary). Contexts are the sessions between these terminations and are managed by the media gateway controller. Like SIP, MEGACO is a text-based protocol, unlike H.248, which is binary based. See H.323 and SIP.

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Contents 1 Protocol architecture 2 Implementations 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

The Media Gateway Control Protocol is an architecture for controlling media gateways on Internet Protocol (IP) networks and the public switched telephone network (PSTN).

Protocol architecture

The Media Gateway Control Protocol architecture and its methodologies and programming interfaces are described in RFC 2805.^[1]

Implementations

Two implementations of the Media Gateway Control Protocol are in common use. The names of both are abbreviations of the protocol group:

• MGCP is described in RFC 3435.^[2]
• Megaco is described in RFC 3525.^[3] [ Obsoleted by: RFC 5125.^[4]]

Although similar in architecture, MGCP and Megaco are distinctly different protocols and are not interoperable.

See also

• Voice over Internet Protocol

References

1. ^ RFC 2805, Media Gateway Control Protocol Architecture and Requirements, N. Greene, M. Ramalho, B. Rosen, The Internet Society (April 2000)
2. ^ RFC 3435, Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP) Version 1.0, F. Andreasen, B. Foster, The Internet Society (January 2003)
3. ^ RFC 3525, Gateway Control Protocol Version 1, C. Groves, M. Pantaleo, T. Anderson, T. Taylor (editors), The Internet Society (June 2003)
4. ^ RFC 5125, Reclassification of RFC 3525 to Historic, T. Taylor, The IETF Trust (February 2008)

External links

• MGCP Information Site Information related to MGCP
• H.248 Information Site Information related to H.248/Megaco, including pointers to standards and draft specifications

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February 2008

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