[Asterisk-Users] Radio for Music on Hold?

[Grzegorz Nosek]

On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 13:21:54 -0700, Paul Crick wrote
> > Tell your client that some callers put on hold may
> > know about the above and "radio on hold" would make
> > the company look at best ignorent.
> I read something somewhere.. can't remember where.. some PBX 
> buyer's guide maybe? ANYWAY.. point is.. it sounds bad to 
> the callers.. and you never know what they're hearing.. 
> dodgy music, a DJ going off on one, throwing a fit, an 
> advert for a competitor or something else inappropriate..
> 
> Come on people! Fork out $50 for a discman and another few 
> bucks for some royalty free library music and have that on 
> hold instead.. You're in control, you know what your callers 
> are listening to, and you're also legal :-)
> 
> Oh yeah.. we're talking Asterisk.. the physical connection 
> to an external source is what sparked this whole thread 
> off.. sorry, my bad - I forgot.. ok, forget the discman, 
> fork out for the music, rip it to MP3 and use the built in 
> MOH solution?
> 
> Or.. are we still talking about the MOH being the output of 
> the radio station that's actually being called, that's using 
> Asterisk as its PBX?
> 

Hmm, what do you think about about creating a fake extension (like s,
t, fax etc.) called, say, "hold" that would be called every time moh
is played now?

to get the old behaviour you'd do:
exten=>hold,1,MusicOnHold
(or sth)

and you'd get the required flexibility for just about anything.
examples off the top of my head follow:
* dial a sip extension which streams an .asf using some
proprietary/windows/etc. software
* some agi plays you nice music while mixing in some real time
generated info ("you've been on hold for $time. if you're pissed off
already, dial $phone and complain" ;))
* well, the top of my head seems to end here but i'm sure you'll find
more creative uses :)

cheers,
 grzegorz nosek