Overview

Regional media allows global contact centers to optimize the media processing of their customer calls. To use regional media, you must provision or update your contact center organization to Next Generation media platform. For more information about global availability, see the article Get started with Webex Contact Center.

In a Webex Contact Center, which is provisioned with our Classic media platform, media is coupled to the data center location that your contact center is provisioned in. If a Webex Contact Center is provisioned in U.S. data center, all your media is terminated in the U.S.

For a contact center organization provisioned with Next Generation media platform, media is optimized to a geographical region with regional media. If the contact center provides global service with PSTN entry points and there are agents located globally, you can use regional media. With regional media, you can select an entry point where you want to process media. Where regional media is available, entry points in the U.S. with agents in the U.S. can use media processing in the U.S., entry points in Europe can be processed in Europe. Your contact center operates from your primary region, whereas event and command information is exchanged between the contact center and media location. Regional media helps to decrease the audio latency and improves the audio quality.

When you deploy the contact center, the administrators can choose the preferred media location based on their environment and calling locations.

Regional media with Webex Calling

Webex Contact Center supports regional media with both VPOP and Webex Calling. To use regional media with Webex Calling, you must understand the following key concepts:

For Webex Calling

Webex Calling Location

A geographic grouping of Webex Calling endpoints. A PSTN option is assigned to a location. This can be Cloud Connect for Webex Calling or a Local Gateway. If using Cloud Connect, the location country decides which service providers you are offered service from.

Webex Calling Telephone Number

Telephone numbers can be ordered from a Cloud Connect provider or created for a local gateway. Numbers can be assigned to contact center entry points as well are regular Webex Calling endpoints and applications.

For Webex Contact Center

Contact Center Entry Point

The entry point into the contact center which identifies a flow to execute for a specific telephone number.

Contact Center PSTN Region

A geographic location to use for media processing for a voice call.

In the Management Portal of Webex Contact Center, the administrator can associates a Webex Calling telephone number in a location with a Webex Contact Center entry point and select a PSTN region for media processing.

The following diagram provides a simple example of a deployment in a single region (United States) using Webex Calling and Webex Contact Center. The organization is provisioned with two Webex Calling locations and Cloud Connect is used to purchase four PSTN telephone numbers. Two numbers have been allocated to endpoints, in this case, a telephone and a Webex App. Two more numbers are available for provisioning for contact center entry points.

In this example, when an inbound call is received for 555-333, it is mapped through a Webex Contact Center adapter to an entry point processed in U.S. media region.

An administrator can create Entry Point mappings in the Webex Contact Center to provision this entry point. Creating this mapping will automatically create an adapter in Webex Calling which routes the call to Webex Contact Center.

An example of an entry point mapping is as follows:

A Webex Calling location is selected which provides access to a list of unallocated Webex Calling telephone numbers. You can use the telephone number with the contact center entry point.

The administrator can select an entry point and also a PSTN Region. In this case, the Default region is selected as the Webex Contact Center and Webex Calling instances are both in the U.S.

In the global deployment, Webex Calling and Webex Contact Center are deployed and hosted in the United States but the contact center handles calls in multiple regions. In each region, Webex Calling locations are created and telephone numbers are provisioned. Entry points are created and are mapped to Webex Calling number and a Webex Contact Center PSTN region. Although both Webex Calling and Webex Contact Center are provisioned in the United States, the media for each inbound call remains in local region.

In the above example, the entry point mapping for Germany is as follows:

With regional media, inbound calls and agents can be located in different regions. Media is typically configured in alignment with the inbound call region. The following diagram shows an inbound call to an entry point in the U.S. being delivered to an agent in Europe.

For more information on the use of regional media, contact your Customer Success Manager.