[Asterisk-Users] Using Asterisk as a replacement for a Merlin Legend.

[Carmi Weinzweig]

I was just about to replace 2 Merlin Legend systems (one in my house 
and one in my Parent's house) with * systems. I have 2 beefy linux 
systems ready to go and have enough Cisco 7960 and 7970 phones to 
replace all my MLX-10D, MLX-16D and MLX-20 phones. Then I discovered 
that * seems to be lacking a critical feature for replacing a legend 
(or any standard PBX) and that is an ability for a user to see if 
another user is on his or her phone or if a trunk is in use.

I am not sure if this is where I should address this issue (or if it 
should be send to a developers list), but is there any work underway to 
support this? In other words, what I would like to see is if I have a 
trunk that appears on multiple phones (my house's main line for 
example), I want a visual indication on every phone that it is in use 
if someone on another phone is using it.

On a related front, I would like to be able to put a call on hold in 
one location and be able to pick it up somewhere else with out having 
to know anything about where it was placed on hold (difference between 
call park and call hold). If this is available today, it is not listed 
as a feature on *'s website, nor can I figure out how to make it happen 
from *'s documentation.

To be clear, Asterisk is an amazing product and offers a great many 
features that I am looking forward to using. I am just trying to figure 
out when I will be able to use it to replace my PBXes.

Thanks in advance.

/carmi