[Asterisk-Users] Re: Asterisk-Users digest, Vol 1 #4901 - 10 msgs

[Jason Kawakami]

----- Original Message ----- 
> Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Analog Phones with Status Light Indicators
> From: Adam Goryachev <mailinglists at websitemanagers.com.au>
> To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
> Organization: Website Managers
> Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 14:53:02 +1000
> Reply-To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
>
> On Wed, 2004-08-11 at 20:42, Steven Critchfield wrote:
> > On Wed, 2004-08-11 at 06:17, Jeremy Lowery wrote:
> > > I am currently a new asterisk user and new to telephony in general. I
> > > have been looking around to implement a solution with asterisk that
has
> > > many of the nice features of a proprietary PBX for a small office. The
> > > features that I am looking for that I haven't been able to find any
> > > information on are:
> > >
> > > - status light indicators for which incoming line in ringing
> > > - status light indicators for which lines are currently in use
> > >
> > > Basically any information on phones (analog preferred or hard VoIP)
> > > which have status light indicator buttons that can be made to function
> > > with asterisk.
> > >
> > > Is this possible, and has anyone set up a phone system with these
> > > features using asterisk? If so, what phones were used and what kind of
> > > special configuration is required?
> >
> > You are looking for line occurences/apperances.
> >
> > Your problem is that in the analog world, to get those line apperances
> > you have to wire every line to every phone. Not very efficient, nor
> > practical, nor does it scale to a large number of phone lines. Plus on
> > some circuits, lines are not relavent, such as a PRI.
>
> However, it might be relevant to be able to:
>
> a) program 5 lights on each phone to display the status of the 5
> extensions of people in your 'group'.
>
> b) program a number of lights on each phone to display the number of
> people in a specific queue (ie, each light represents a 'position' in
> the queue).
>
> > Under asterisk, you are encouraged to use extensions. Extensions are
> > flexible and scaleable. Your 3 line phone system now can scale up to 2
> > or 3 PRI without making major changes to user behavior. You will not
> > find a phone system with a T1 worth of indicator lights in a price range
> > for every persons desk, You wouldn't want a phone with enough
> > lights/buttons to access 3 T1s worth of phone lines.
>
> Unfortunately I have this situation:
> Another supplier proposing an NEC phone system where the phones have 16
> programmable keys for Direct Station Selection (DSS)/Busy Lamp Fields
> (BLF) or Feature Access.
>
> AND
>
> The customer 'must have' a number of those DSS/BLF's, where must have
> seems to be around 4 to 5. So, I would absolutely love to be able to do
> this with some VoIP hardware phone such as the polycom IP600 or even a
> cisco 7960.
>
> > So before you hamstring your small office into having unnecessary
> > growing pains as it expands at some time down the road, think about the
> > nicer, larger PBX solutions.
>
> True, but would still be nice to see the status of the people around
> you/in your team. How can I offer any sort of comparable/competitive
> system without this??
>
> Regards,
> Adam

Adam-

As a reseller of both * and traditional proprietary systems I make this
comment to you:  Sure, with * you have some limitations with the terminals
that we have access to but the story you need to be telling is one of
flexibility and of feature richness.  In * systems the terminal is simply a
voice path for a user, there are applications available to give BLF that are
generously donated to the community that are way more flexible than anything
the NEC is going to provide to them.  If you can't or won't use these
applications then build a new one that works for you.  The deal with * is
that the features we are talking about are commodities and they belong in
the public domain.  The power of the system cannot be limited to the
terminals but in the applications that the users use (ask them how much it
would cost for ACD or Conferencing or DB based CDR records on the NEC, these
are all standard in the basic build of *) and also the story you need to
tell is what happens if your system grows?  Talk about total cost of
ownership not total cost of purchase.

In the end, * really isn't a good play for the 4x8 KSU in a dental office.
You need to find the thing that the customer wants to do differently than
the NEC's or Nortel's or the Avaya's are going to let them.

Jason Kawakami