The Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP) has only primitive support in Asterisk. This is likely due to the fact that SIP has stolen the limelight from every other VoIP protocol (except IAX, of course). Because of this, you should attempt to use Asterisk’s MCGP channel in a production environment only if you are prepared to perform extensive testing, are willing to pay to have features and patches implemented within your time frames, and have in-house expertise with the protocol.

Having said that, we are not prepared to pronounce MGCP dead. SIP is not yet the panacea it has been touted as, and MGCP has proven itself to be very useful in carrier backbone environments. Many believe MGCP will fill a niche or void that has not yet been discovered, and we remain interested in it.