[Asterisk-Dev] Background music

[Antony Stone]

On Sunday 12 December 2004 12:28, Satchid wrote:

> To everybody on this wonderful group.
> I am considering to use an asterisk PBX in my company with 70 telephones
> and I would like to play background music trough the speakers of the
> telephones. When the hook is lifted or when the phone rings, the background
> music stops till the phone is on hook again (or 'til the phone stops
> ringing). Is this possible? Or can it easily be programmed. Is it not
> similar with the ring tone?

The answer to this depends almost entirely on what type of telephones you 
intend to use, and whether they support any type of 'tannoy' or 'on-hook 
announcement' facility - ie: where a remote system (asterisk) can feed an 
audio signal to be played by the phone.

For example, with standard analogue phones plugged into FXS interfaces on 
asterisk, I'm certain this would not be possible (because the audio circuitry 
is disconnected whilst the phone is on-hook).   With soft phones, I imagine 
it quite likely would be (or could be added to a suitable Open Source soft 
phone).   With SIP phones, consult the specs to see if such a thing is 
supported.

As for the bandwidth / CPU requirements for Asterisk to play music to 70 
extensions simultaneously.... well, that may require a bigger machine or 
network connection than you expect :)

Regards,

Antony.

-- 
It is also possible that putting the birds in a laboratory setting 
inadvertently renders them relatively incompetent.

 - Daniel C Dennett