[Asterisk-Users] Replicating Legacy Phone Behavior

[Nick Bachmann]

Greg Boehnlein wrote:

>	First and foremost, these Key System installers are big believers 
>in VoIP and convergence technologies. While the KSU vendors may see 

This has been my experiance as well.  Everybody but PBX vendors like 
VoIP.  The KSU people like it because it gives them more work and job 
security, but the vendors don't like protocols they don't allow them to 
have lock-in.  After all, I can use a mix of phones on my * PBX, but if 
I want a digital phone on my Fujitsu system, I've got to get a Fuji 
phone.  Phones can be like razor blades for Norelco... it's the product 
that keeps on selling itself!

>Asterisk as competition, the installers on the ground see it as an 
>excellent addition to help connect remote offices and workers together, 
>but they are driven by the needs of their customers, most of whom want to 
>KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). I.E. they want an Asterisk based VoIP 
>solution to work in a similar manner to their existing PBX or Phone 
>System
 >
>	As a result, these are some of the questions that they threw at me 
>that I am trying to figure out:
>
>1. Legacy KSU and PBX users are used to seeing blinking lights on their 
>phone that indicate outside lines in use, call on hold, voice mail 
>waiting, do not disturb etc.. Is it possible to have these features using 
>SIP phones on the dekstop? I.E. if a user puts a caller on hold at one 
>extension, can it blink a light on all extensions so that user can be 
>picked up at another extension? This gets into issues regarding 
>re-training people with new phones etc.. Kind of like the issue of "I 
>don't want to press enter to make a call.. Why can't this phone just work 
>like my old analog phone?"
>  
>
Having a DSS (the blinking lights for each extension, short for "Digital
Station Selector") is a feature that I wish Asterisk had.  A week or so
ago there was discussion about a new Windows-based Asterisk application
(Asterisk Call Manager for Windows?) and it was said that in a later
version there was a plan to add a "Console mode" (the name for the
Uberphone that the DSS attaches to).  If I weren't so swamped, I'd ofter
to help out :-).

Figuring out which extensions were busy would be easy with the Manager
API, but I'm not sure how you could forward incoming calls bound for
another extension.  I guess if it were easy enough, I guess I could mke 
a Javax/Swing app to do it.

If there's already an app that does this, I haven't see it, but I'd love to!

>2. How does one go about creating call queues and advanced features such 
>as UCD and ACD using Asterisk?
>
Take a look at http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk+config+queues.conf
and the pages it references.

>3. Is it possible to do Phone to Phone paging with SIP phones? This is a 
>feature that I personally use a lot on my Legacy Phone System. I simply 
>hit the extension of the persion I want to chat, and it beeps their phone 
>and we can talk. Sort of like an Intercom system.
>  

That would be a phone feature... I think some of the Cisco phones do 
it... it's billed as "AutoAnswer" I think.

Nick

P.S. The Asterisk-users lists are searchable if you want to check if 
your question has been answered before you post.  Also, the 
voip-info.org Wiki is very informative.