[Asterisk-Users] Announcement to caller when called party haspicked up - without initial Answer()?

[Philipp von Klitzing]

Hi!

With a little bit of thinking you can succeed [and there's more than one 
way to do this, one alternative to the sketch below would involve MeetMe 
where you'd put the called person into MeetMe and let the caller join a 
little later - for recording you'd need create yet another .call file to 
make a quiet (non-human) third party join thru a "Local" channel 
construct that does the recording]:

[caller]
- set $GLOBALVARIABLE = false
- AGI("create .call file") to call destination
- Loop with Wait(.5) and GotoIf(...) checking a $GLOBALVARIABLE
- If $GLOBALVARIABLE = true do Playback(), then Transfer() to destination
- If false loop again, if max./timeout --> hangup, mailbox etc

[called]
- .call file rings destination
- caller answers, .call file connects dest to context,extension,priority
- set $GLOBALVARIABLE to true
- Plabyack("caller - please hang up!") short announcement, then hangup 
(=free the line again)
- Accept the new, transferred call

Notes & fine tuning:
* you can do nice things using the "Local" channel construct in .call 
files
* consider multiple calls coming in at the same time for the same 
destination
* Use computer pop-up question where the called person can accept/reject 
the call
* Employ ChanIsAvail() to check if the destination is busy

> >>Also I was under the impression that in Europe calls are charged as soon
> >>as you start ringing and not on pickup (this may be out of date as its
> >>been a while since my school skiing trip ;-P )
> >
> >Not in all countries at least. Sweden has always had the charge start only 
> >on answer. I expect most of Europe to use a similar convention. At least I 
> >have never encountered a payphone in Europe that consumed my coins before 
> >the line was answered. 
> >
> Not in any country I know of, except for cellphone calls to China. A 
> call is not normally charged until it is answered. If it is never 
> answered, no charge is incurred.

In Austria pay phones used to act like this, e.g. eat your first coin 
even if the remote party didn't pick up. I think in France it was the 
same, at least for some time, but I might confuse that with yet another 
European country.

Cheers, Philipp