[asterisk-users] Newbie questions about Voice mail

[bdk at unb.ca]

On Sun, 5 Nov 2006, Dean Collins wrote:

> Date: Sun, 5 Nov 2006 15:21:19 -0500
> From: Dean Collins <Dean at cognation.net>
> To: bdk at unb.ca
> Cc: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
>     <asterisk-users at lists.digium.com>
> Subject: RE: [asterisk-users] Newbie questions about Voice mail
> 
> Hi Brian,
>
> Uhmmm as it appears you are using a centrex service from your telco
> (your comment about not having any pabx)

yes.

>
> I need to ask this question......are you sure that under your current
> commercial arrangements you are actually allowed to continue to use the
> telco as your centrex provider but not use them for your voicemail?

Voice mail is a separately billed service that some lines have and some 
don't. We pay $0.06 per minute to use it. Its  cash cow for the telco and 
a big bill for us.

>
> Also if you decided to use a separate asterisk server for your voicemail
> service how would calls be transferred to this number?

I am assuming there is a feature to transfer a call when the phoen does 
not ring after a certain number of rings. But I don't thing I know to 
handle getting voice mail if the line is busy.

>
> Would the carrier allow you to host and asterisk service off some of
> your existing centrex extensions? Would this incur a cost or similar.

I am sure there would be a cost whatever we had them do.
I was hoping to go a little further if possible to install a server and 
a t1 circuit with enough capacity to handle the load.

>
>
> I think for your bosses 'discovery' report the answer would be
>
> Yes to can asterisk be used as just a voicemail server
> Yes to people can operate with the same methods of retrieval they
> currently do
> Yes to people can also retrieve via additional methods such as web or
> email
> And finally yes this will save us money in the longer term at 6c per
> minute currently.
>
>
> The next step should be
> 1a/ You boss decides You or someone in your team skill up in asterisk
> Or

Does the asterisk communitty have a presence at any of the IP telephony 
conference?

......Brian



> Regards,
>
> Dean Collins
> Cognation Pty Ltd
> dean at cognation.net
> +1-212-203-4357 Ph
>
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: bdk at unb.ca [mailto:bdk at unb.ca]
>> Sent: Sunday, 5 November 2006 3:02 PM
>> To: Dean Collins
>> Cc: bdk at unb.ca; Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial
> Discussion
>> Subject: RE: [asterisk-users] Newbie questions about Voice mail
>>
>> Dean
>>
>> Thanks for responding. I have added more info in your reply. Right now
> we
>> do not operate our own PBX or voice mail system. All of the service is
>> provided by the telco. As a start I was wondering if I could simply
> put in
>> asterisk to do just voicemail. I am assuming the telco can configure
> all
>> the phone to automatically call forward to "asterisk" on no answer. If
>> asterisk can handle this I am assuming that a user would just call
> some
>> number to retiev voice mail. They would lose the call waiting light on
>> their phone so the email notification of a voice mail would be
> necessary.
>>
>>
>> ......Brian
>>
>>
>> On Sun, 5 Nov 2006, Dean Collins wrote:
>>
>>> Date: Sun, 5 Nov 2006 00:04:36 -0500
>>> From: Dean Collins <Dean at cognation.net>
>>> To: bdk at unb.ca,
>>>     Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
>>>     <asterisk-users at lists.digium.com>
>>> Subject: RE: [asterisk-users] Newbie questions about Voice mail
>>>
>>> Hi Brian,
>>> I'm sure some other people will give you better answers but quick
>>> answers are;
>>>
>>> 1/ Depends on volume of message leaving/collection, is it in a
> single
>>> location? Multiple locations with multiple time zones?
>>
>> Two locations, one time zone. Could be two different systems since
> they
>> are in two different cites connected by a 1G connection.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Estimate the number of voicemails left per hour and reply with this.
>>>
>>>
>> There are about 3000 phones. Some are busier than others os lets say 2
>> messages per phone per day. An they are mostly in the peak work day so
>> lets say 500 per hour and the average length is 30 seconds.
>>
>>
>>> 2/ retrieve either via deliver to email or dial in to a number to
>>> collect voicemail via phone (or collect and play via a website)
>>>
>> What does the conversion and how does one handle bulk updates? to
> users?
>> How much control does the user have?
>>
>>> How are the retrieving their voicemail now? Do you want to replicate
>>> this for ease of replacement as near as possible?
>>
>> Right now we are using the voice mail service provided by the teclo
> and
>> are spending $0.06 per minute. The user connects to the voice mail by
>> dialing  *99 and entering a password on their office set or remoetely
> by
>> dialing 123-MAIL on any phone (123 is the three digit prefix of their
>> phone number) and then entering their password. They do not have any
>> voice to email service today. If possible I would like to ease the
>> transition if it can be done. Lots of stepswill follow discovery if it
> can
>> be done. >
>>> 3/ Not sure what you mean by tie in?
>>>
>> How do you match a voice mail box to an email address?
>> Can there be multiple email addresses for one voice mail box?
>>
>>
>>> 4/ Sure, how do you have this configured at the moment? Why not
>>> replicate voicemail group delivery in the same format?
>>
>> Talkmail is a service provided by the telco where you group a bunch of
>> numbers together so you can send the same message to all of them at
> the
>> same time.
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Dean
>>>
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
> [mailto:asterisk-users-
>>>> bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of bdk at unb.ca
>>>> Sent: Saturday, 4 November 2006 11:54 PM
>>>> To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
>>>> Subject: [asterisk-users] Newbie questions about Voice mail
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I am totally ignorant about actually using asterisk for any
> purpose. I
>>>> have read some of the docs but not all. I am currently doing a
>>> telephone
>>>> audit for my company and one of the issues is voice mail. We are
>>> spending
>>>> quit a bit of money with our telco for voice mail services and I
> was
>>>> wondering about using asterisk as just a voice mail system. We are
> not
>>>> quite ready to move to a full VOIP system yet but if I can get this
>>> system
>>>> in place the VOIP will follow.
>>>>
>>>> Could I get all 3000 phones (on 2 sites) or a large subset set to
> have
>>> a
>>>> call forward no-answer feature set to call a number that would be
>>> answered
>>>> by asterisk's voice mail.
>>>>
>>>> If so:
>>>>     1. what hardware do I need to handle 3000 phones?
>>>>
>>>>     2. how would users retrieve their voice mail?
>>>>
>>>>     3. how does one tie voice mail into an e-mail address? Are
> their
>>> ways
>>>>        to do bulk updates for several thousand new users every
> year?
>>>>
>>>>     4. is there a feature what we call talk mail where you set up a
>>> group
>>>>        of phone numbers and send the same message to all of them?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> .....TIA
>>>> ........Brian Kaye
>>>> ...........UNB
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