G729 – What Happens If Licences Used Up?

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Asterisk Users 4 Comments

I haven’t been able to find the answer online, and am not currently able to conduct an experiment to find the answer…

I understand that in a SIP call where G729 has been negotiated as the preferred codec, a G.729 licence is not consumed until there is a need to perform transcoding, e.g. play a non-g729 sound, or do voicemail, or enter a Meetme, etc.

What happens when a SIP call in progress needs a G.729 licence and they are all in use already? Does the call fail, or go silent, or do a re-INVITE to negotiate another codec?

I’m interested in what happens on Asterisk 1.2 (for a legacy system), and also whether it is any different on later versions.

Thanks, Tony

4 thoughts on - G729 – What Happens If Licences Used Up?

  • The question depends if you are offering up other codecs or not. If you only using g729, the call will fail to establish because lack of codecs. If you offer a both g729 and ulaw, then ulaw will be used.

  • In my experience when you run out of g729 licenses additional calls will fail. Simple as that. Make sure you run out of licenses.

    —–Original Message—

  • In article , Paul Belanger wrote:

    The codecs offered by each end would be g729, alaw and ulaw.

    I guess my point is that the licence is NOT required to negotiate codecs and establish the call, e.g. if g.729 sounds are installed and calls are pass-through, then no transcoding is required.

    So the call will negotiate g729 and get established, and then if later the dialplan calls something that requires transcoding, the licence is requested at that time. What happens if there is not one available?
    Can/will it do a re-INVITE to change codec, or does the call fail, or does it continue but go silent?

    Cheers Tony

  • That would only apply for new calls. Even new calls would still typically accept g729 even if there are no licenses remaining as there might not be transcoding required. What I would expect to happen if there were no licenses is for you to see an error on the console (possibly repeated multiple times) and for there to be no audio. This is certainly what happens if you have a g729
    call with no license and then try to play a sound file which does not have a native g729 format.