[Asterisk-Users] Asterisk forwarding confirmation?

[Adam Goryachev]

On Sat, 2005-08-13 at 19:53 -0400, Jeff Buchbinder wrote:
> Hi; I've been using Asterisk for a few months now, and I have run into
> an interesting issue that I thought someone else in the community may
> have run into:
> 
> I have an Asterisk install set up to receive helpdesk calls, route
> them to several IAX extensions and an extension which is simply a
> forwarded call over the POTS to a cellphone, so that if no one is
> logged into their IAX extensions for whatever reason, the call would
> go to a cellphone. Ideally, I'd like it to move onto the next part of
> the dialplan if the cellphone isn't answered.
> 
> Unfortunately, it turns out that most (if not all cellphones) have
> voicemail, which appears to Asterisk as though it had connected with a
> person, and it then connects the call. I had wanted to put in a small
> AGI application (or something similar) which asked for a single
> keypress to confirm that someone had actually picked up the phone
> call, but it seems as though using an AGI script would simply prompt
> the caller. Has anyone else had this sort of problem, and is there a
> way around other than creating call files and attempting to connect
> them with the incoming call?

Is the outgoing call to the cellphone routed through a ZAP interface??
If so, look for agentcallbacklogin and ackcall. Basically, you pretend
the mobile phone user is an 'agent', enable the ackcall, so that the
user needs to press # to accept the call. If voicemail answers the call,
the voicemail system won't press #, so asterisk will assume the call is
not answered, and move onto the next priority (Make sure you set a dial
timeout).

Regards,
Adam