[Asterisk-Users] How to emulate a multiline phone in Asterisk

[Tim Robinson]

There are a lot of functions that we have on our PBX that are not well 
supported at the moment by Asterisk.  Specifically the Busy Lamp 
Field/button concept.  We have a large MD110 pbx that does this very well.

It is essential when trying to deploy Asterisk even in a small office 
environment that users do not see their old posh phone with lots of 
buttons and LEDs being replaced with a POTS handset!

An attempt to support 'BLF' is done on Asterisk by use of 
Subscribe/notify SIP feature with the 'Hint' command in the dialplan. 
It works well, but the only SIP phone that I know supports the 
subscribe/Notify feature of Asterisk (i.e. the busy lamp field) is the 
SNOM range.

  For what you are doing this might be a solution. I am still waiting 
for the low-cost (sub-$100) SIP or IAX phone that supports the BLF concept.

But the ability to pick up any specific POTS line is not really viable 
on Asterisk, especially on a PRI or BRI circuit - it is more customary 
to park the call or to drop the call into a conference room on the PBX. 
  Both are possible with Asterisk.

Rgds
Tim

Peter Svensson wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004, Jim Dossey wrote:
> 
> 
>>I have a client who currently has a Toshiba PBX.  We are trying to
>>replace it with an Asterisk system.  One of the features that they have
>>on their current PBX is the ability to select a POTS line by pressing a
>>button on their phones.  They have 10 POTS lines and they can select any
>>line by just pressing the corresponding button on their phone.  They can
>>also join an existing call by just picking up the handset and pressing
>>the button for the call they want to join.  This isn't like a conference
>>call because you have one outside line coming in and 2 or more people
>>inside the office on that call.
> 
> 
> This is commonly referred to as a "key system". Asterisk is not terribly 
> well suited as a key system since it is a pbx. The difference is 
> (leaving out all the subtleties) that a key system is based on the concept 
> of pstn lines while the pbx is based on the concept of extensions. Even 
> the whole pstn cloud can be thought of as extensions. 
> 
> You could possibly make something similar if you really _really_ want to 
> using agi scripts and redirects through the manager port to a meetme 
> conference. Before going down that road I suggest you first consider if 
> your client is best served by this solution or if it is just an artifact 
> of their old system.
> 
> Peter
> 
> 
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