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Restricting call bandwidth

The Pexip Infinity platform allows you to restrict the amount of bandwidth used by each participant when dialed in to a Pexip Infinity service (Virtual Meeting Room, Virtual Auditorium, Virtual Reception) or for Pexip Distributed Gateway calls or other outbound calls that are managed by Call Routing Rules. You can place restrictions on the bandwidth received by participants, sent by participants, or both. The restriction applies to the total bandwidth of all media (video, audio and presentation) per participant.

Bandwidth restrictions can be configured on a global basis, or on each individual service or routing rule. Settings applied to an individual service override any global limits that have been applied.

If a Virtual Reception has bandwidth limits, these only apply to participants while they are in the Virtual Reception. When their call is transferred to their selected Virtual Meeting Room or Virtual Auditorium, any bandwidth restrictions for that service will then apply.

When sending main video and presentation content to a conference participant, Pexip Infinity always splits the available bandwidth 50/50 between main video and content.

Inbound bandwidth restrictions are implemented as requests to the participant device to limit its bandwidth to the specified amount; Pexip Infinity cannot actually enforce inbound restrictions.

Restricting video resolutions

If you wish to limit video calls to specific resolutions, you should do this using the maximum bandwidth settings, as follows:

To allow resolutions up to... Set the maximum bandwidth to...
Full HD (1080p)* no limit
HD (720p) 1800
SD 960
* You must have also enabled Full HD (1080p).

Applying restrictions to an entire deployment

To restrict the bandwidth of calls across your entire deployment:

  1. Go to Platform configuration > Global settings.
  2. In the Service configuration section, enter the desired values in the following fields:
    OptionDescription
    Maximum inbound call bandwidth (kbps)

    Limits the bitrate of media received by Pexip Infinity from a participant.

    Leave blank if you do not want to apply any restrictions.

    Note that this restriction does not apply to specific services or rules that have a Maximum inbound call bandwidth configured.

    Maximum outbound call bandwidth (kbps)

    Limits the bitrate of media sent from Pexip Infinity to a participant.

    Leave blank if you do not want to apply any restrictions.

    Note that this restriction does not apply to specific services or rules that have a Maximum outbound call bandwidth configured.

Applying restrictions to a service or Call Routing Rule

To restrict the bandwidth of calls to a particular service or Call Routing Rule:

  1. Go to the relevant service or rule:
    • Service configuration > Virtual Meeting Rooms
    • Service configuration > Virtual Auditoriums
    • Service configuration > Virtual Receptions
    • Service configuration > Call routing
  2. Either select the name of the service or rule you wish to edit, or click Add.
  3. In the Advanced options section, select Show (not required for Call Routing Rules).
  4. Enter the desired values in the following fields:
    OptionDescription
    Maximum inbound call bandwidth (kbps)

    Limits the bitrate of media received by Pexip Infinity from a participant.

    Leave blank if you do not want to apply any restrictions.

    Note that this will override any global Maximum inbound call bandwidth that may have been configured.

    Maximum outbound call bandwidth (kbps)

    Limits the bitrate of media sent from Pexip Infinity to a participant.

    Leave blank if you do not want to apply any restrictions.

    Note that this will override any global Maximum outbound call bandwidth that may have been configured.

  5. Select Save.

Examples

  • If you want to limit a particular Virtual Meeting Room to standard-definition (SD) video calls, you should restrict the inbound and outbound call bandwidth to 960 kbps — this allows for the highest quality SD but ensures that HD is not available.
  • If you have enabled Full HD (1080p) in your deployment, but wish to limit some Virtual Meeting Rooms to HD (720p) calls only, you should restrict the inbound and outbound call bandwidths of that service to 1800 kbps.
  • If you want to allow certain Virtual Meeting Rooms to support HD (720p) calls, but restrict all other services to SD calls, then you should apply:
    • maximum inbound and outbound bandwidths of 960 kbps globally, and
    • maximum inbound and outbound bandwidths of 1800 kbps to the Virtual Meeting Rooms that you want to be able to use HD.
  • In most cases you should apply the same bandwidth restrictions to the inbound and outbound calls within a service. However, you may wish to allow participants to send their video as SD, but receive the composed layout of all participants (main video and video thumbnails) as HD. In this case, you would set the inbound call bandwidth to 960 kbps and the outbound to 1800 kbps.