Call Admission Control (CAC) prevents oversubscription of
VoIP networks. CAC is used in the call set-up phase and applies to real-time media traffic as opposed to data traffic. CAC mechanisms complement and are distinct from the capabilities of
quality of service tools to protect voice traffic from the negative effects of other voice traffic and to keep excess voice traffic off the network. Since it averts voice traffic congestion, it is a ''preventive''
Congestion Control Procedure. It ensures that there is enough bandwidth for authorized flows.
Integrated Services with
RSVP (which reserve resources for the flow of packets through the network) using controlled-load service ensures that a call cannot be set up if it cannot be supported. CAC rejects calls when either there is insufficient CPU processing power, the upstream and downstream traffic exceeds prespecified thresholds, or the number of calls being handled exceeds a specified limit.
''
Connection Admission Control (CAC)'' can be used to prevent congestion in connection-oriented protocols such as
ATM. In that context, there are several schemes available.
[Call admission control schemes: a review. HG Perros, KM Elsayed, N Inc - IEEE Communications Magazine, 1996 - comsoc.org] However, VoIP differs in that it uses
RTP,
UDP and
IP, all of which are
connectionless protocols.
References
{{reflist
External links
* https://web.archive.org/web/20050519224329/http://www.bytbredbandsdelare.nu/cac.pdf
VoIP protocols