[Asterisk-Users] Announced Call Transfer

[Rich Adamson]

> > > > >more expensive phone in reception but leave the other people on the cheap
> > > > >Grandstream phones?
> > > > >
> > > > Yes, I have found the Snom200 does consultative transfers well..
> > > >
> > > > >Couldn't this problem be solved with an asterisk upgrade?
> > > > >
> > > > No, Its an issue that is handled on the phone..
> > >
> > > Perhaps I am confused, but I tend to believe that Asterisk sits in the
> > > middle of all these calls.  So when I press the # key for transfer it
> >
> > In many cases, that's a bad assumption, but it depends on your config.
> >
> > Unless you've purposefully configured something different, asterisk is
> > "not" in the middle. Once a call is established, the communications
> > (packet flows) happen directly between the two sip phones and does not
> > pass through asterisk.
> 
> I thought asterisk is bridging a call.
> I have seen it even on debug.

Asterisk will bridge a call in some cases and not in others. If codec
conversion is required between phones, its stays in the middle. If the
two phones can agree upon a common codec, etc, * is not in the middle
from a pure communications perpective. In that particular case, what
the phone does when the # key is press is totally a function of how the
phone was programmed (and not asterisk). If the phone, as an example only,
has an implementation bug that says I'm not going to forward the # key to
asterisk during a conversation, obviously * can't interpret it.

Note: this is a different topic then what the orignal poster was talking 
about, and only intended as a comment to "...asterisk sits in the middle 
of all these calls...".