[Asterisk-Users] Snom 220 (or other phones) - line apperances?

[Noah Miller]

> Message: 11
> Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 11:17:03 +1000
> From: JB Hewit <johnblade at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Snom 220 (or other phones) - line
> 	apperances?
> To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
> Message-ID: <9d880b9e04110717177d3f2a7b at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
> Hi,
> I've googled and searched the wiki but I'm not sure if it's entirely
> possible or not.  I'm looking for 'line apperances' functionality with
> phones like the Snom 220.
>
> Essentially I wish to have buttons on a panel (like the Snom 220's
> extension board) that show when people are on the phone or off the
> phone for a receptionist.

As far as I know, you can't do this with asterisk, at least not easily. 
  From what I've read, most people call this "shared lines" or something 
similar.  I've heard that MGCP does support something similar to this, 
but that Asterisk does not specifically support it.

All of the line appearances on a multi-line sip phone are unique to 
just that phone - nobody on another phone can see them.  This has 
obvious benefits over shared lines, but it sure leaves out operator 
monitoring of all the lines.  Somebody, though, was kind enough to 
direct me to:

http://www.asternic.org/

It is flash-based browser access to all your lines and extensions with 
cool drag and drop capabilities and some other nifty features.
The other thing sorely missing from unique SIP lines, IMHO, is easy 
call parking.  Instead of just pressing the hold button, you have to 
dial a specific extension to park a call.  Of course, most sip phones 
have programmable buttons that allow you to do this in one key press.  
All in all, I'd still rather have the unique SIP lines rather than the 
shared lines.