[Asterisk-Users] Bridged line appearance

[BJ Weschke]

On 2/18/06, mustardman29 <mustardman29 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> So are there any plans for bridged line appearance support in Asterisk?  The
> new Linksys SPA9000 supports it.  A lot of other VoIP systems from Nortel,
> Sylantro etc. supposedly support it.   Seems to me that Asterisk needs to
> get on the bandwagon or be relegated to call centers, specialized voicemail
> applications, and phone chat businesses.  It's not needed for companies used
> to PBX's but something like 75-95% of all companies are small businesses
> using key systems with BLA type behaviour not PBX behaviour.
>
> Like it or not, the mass market uses and will continue to use BLA or
> whatever they call it in the non VoIP world.  I know that without it,
> Asterisk is a non-starter for most small businesses looking to replace their
> key systems.
>
> I am not a software developer but I remember reading a post by an asterisk
> developer stating that implementing it in Asterisk would be difficult but
> without it I think mass market appeal of Asterisk will be quite limited
> IMHO.  There is a famous quote that states, "nothing worth doing is ever
> easy".
>
> Aastra just released their v1.3.1 firmware which supposedly supports the
> internet draft spec of BLA.  The Polycom phones also supposedly support this
> spec so the ability IS there on the phone side.

 1) Yes. There are "plans for it".

 2) No. It won't be easy as Asterisk is a multi-protocol PBX and
usually when we consider introducing a feature like this, its intent
is for it to function across all of the protocols that Asterisk
supports, VoIP or not. Everyone else you've mentioned needs only worry
about their own device supporting a standard or their own system only
supporting devices that they manufacture to support the feature. That
makes things somewhat easier for implementation and Asterisk has no
such luxury given it's completely open nature which most of us see as
an advantage.

 3) The other solutions you've mentioned above all have salaried
engineering staffs whose job it is to implement features as decided by
product management folks also employed by that company who are driven
by the comments and feedback of users such as yourself who fork over
large sums of money compared to what you pay for your Asterisk to have
such solutions. Had you sent such an email to one of these companies
at the time you did on a Friday night in the states, my bet is on the
fact that it wouldn't have even solicited an initial response from a
product management resource until Monday morning.

 4) The SPA-9000 is devoid of features like, Voicemail, which Asterisk
already has. If a system without BLA is a "non-starter" for you and
these small business you have cited, why not consider a combined
solution where Asterisk provides features (call queues/ACD, voicemail,
etc) that the SPA-9000 does not have and then you use the SPA-9000 for
what it is good for (an IP key system - which is not what Asterisk
is)? Asterisk can be whatever and play whatever part you want it to
play in your solution. It doesn't have to be the entire solution.
Because of its open nature, it usually integrates and interoperates
well with many existing products/solutions. The SPA-9000 is no
exception.

 5) There are thousands of small businesses already, my own being one
of them, that would disagree that Asterisk is a "non starter" for
them. Asterisk is what you make of it, and for us, it's a criticial
communications tool for our business.

 These things being said, what was your original intent for writing
such an email? Is there something you'd like to contribute to help get
this feature implemented? You don't need to be a developer to
contribute. There's testing, documentation, bounties to be set for
features one "must have", and all sorts of other areas that could use
the assistance of folks like yourself that aren't software developers.

 Thanks for your initial feedback and we look forward to your
continued contributions to the Asterisk community.

--
Bird's The Word Technologies, Inc.
http://www.btwtech.com/