VoIP for Your Campus | HETMA

VoIP for Your Campus | HETMA
By: Dwayne Smith, CTS

Audio/Video over IP (AVoIP) is quickly becoming the go-to for today’s modern AV designs. The flexibility and near-infinite expandability make it a great choice. However, there are a few drawbacks to AVoIP that need to be considered. Let me layout some of the challenges I have faced with these designs and integrations.

When designing a system, it’s important not to force AVoIP into it. I typically assess the functionality of the space to determine how flexible the system needs to be. For example, if the space is a simple classroom with one projector and a couple of inputs, AVoIP would be overkill. On the other hand, if the space is a large room with an active learning model that has multiple displays and sources, AVoIP is a clear candidate.

This brings us to the first challenge: which AVoIP system is right for your space? There are several different manufacturers offering their own flavor of AVoIP, and this, in my opinion, is the biggest flaw. The majority of manufacturers offer proprietary solutions, meaning you have to use that manufacturer’s equipment for all the endpoints of an AVoIP system.

Let me explain: if you purchase Manufacturer A’s encoder, it will only work with Manufacturer A’s decoders. This limits you to one manufacturer for your AVoIP integrations. I call it “picking your racehorse” because you don’t know if that manufacturer will have product delays that could impact your project timeline or discontinue product lines that would make your system obsolete in a few years. I’m currently dealing with these challenges now. The manufacturer we chose for our AVoIP solution has product delays stretching out for over a year now. This doesn’t work with our project deadlines, so I’m forced to switch to another manufacturer to meet the deadline, resulting in conflicting systems on campus that do not integrate with each other at all. In my opinion, this is not AVoIP, it’s entrapment. I want to be manufacturer-independent, so it doesn’t matter whose encoder or decoder I use. Once the signal is converted to AVoIP, I can send it anywhere to any decoder. If a manufacturer has product delays, I should easily be able to switch to another manufacturer without jeopardizing an existing system. That would be true AVoIP in my opinion.

Now, there are Audio AVoIP protocols out there that are widely adopted across multiple manufacturers. Dante and AES67 are two great ways for transporting high-quality audio signals across your network that are not limited to a single manufacturer’s product line. This is what I want to do with our video and embedded audio signals as well. Software-Defined Video over Ethernet (SDVoE) and Network Device Interface (NDI) are two protocols that are gaining traction within the industry.

I have chosen to move my campus to NDI for AV and Dante for audio as our standard protocols. More manufacturers are providing integrated NDI as an option in their products, establishing NDI as a manufacturer-independent solution for AVoIP integrations. Similarly, Dante has become a widely accepted audio AVoIP solution across the industry. Please understand that I am just sharing what I am doing and am not trying to direct you in this direction at all. Every campus has different needs, which would require you to assess the different AVoIP offerings and find the best solution that would work on your campus.

Now that we have a campus standard for AVoIP, the next challenge is building a campus-wide infrastructure to support your AVoIP deployments for years to come. There are a couple of ways to do this, but the best way is to work with your network team and build a campus-wide VLAN to manage your

AVoIP traffic. I hope you have friends within your network team, because you’re going to need them. At my campus, we have created two VLANs, one for the NDI traffic and another for the Dante traffic. This allows me to segregate the traffic across the network. Currently, we have over 12 different campus-wide VLANs for our AV network needs. This could be a whole article in itself on designing and deploying a campus-wide AV network solution. The big takeaway for now is to get your network team involved early in your AVoIP designs. Without a good network infrastructure, you will not be successful with your AVoIP deployments.

Okay, you have a design and the infrastructure to support it. Now it’s time for deployment and integration. Well, buckle up, buttercup, because this is where the fun starts! Most integrators’ installation technicians are not current on how AVoIP is configured. They can wire up the system based on the design drawings; however, when it comes to configuring them on your network is where most fall short. Before all the integrators reading this start sending me hate mail, let me explain. I’ve seen most integrators’ designs include an isolated network switch to manage the AVoIP needs. The use of an isolated network switch to manage AVoIP needs can be effective within a designated space and allows integrators to provide a turnkey solution with point-to-point warranty. However, this approach presents challenges when you need to send or receive signals beyond that space. Working with campus network integration is a challenge for these companies because they may not have the access needed to properly configure the equipment or troubleshoot issues. This is where your team will need to be involved in commissioning a system properly on your campus network.

Congratulations, you have a working AVoIP deployment, and the only thing left to do is to train your support team. If you waited until this stage to involve your support team, then you’re not going to make any friends this way. AVoIP is challenging at first to support and troubleshoot issues. In the good old days, if a display wasn’t getting a signal, you would check the AV switcher to ensure the routes are correct. Not with AVoIP, it’s all virtual. Training your support team is critical to the long-term success of the space. I normally build a mock room in our office space to allow the staff to get comfortable with new technology before we deploy it. Start small with just one encoder and decoder for the team to get comfortable with and expand from there. As AV professionals, we have had to learn many different solutions throughout the years and have become resident experts to provide the required support to keep these solutions operational. AVoIP is no exception! Understanding network protocols is more important than ever. Get your team the proper training and hands-on experience before putting your first deployment out there.

That’s all I have for today. I hope you enjoyed this article and found it insightful into AVoIP. As this is the first article I have written, please feel free to provide feedback. You can send emails to dlsmith@odu.edu or follow me on Twitter at @DwayneSmithAV. Thank you for reading.