[Asterisk-Users] How to number extensions - Which way is best?

[Tim Burt]

Combing thru the Wiki, I did find that Asterisk does have some secret
sauce with respect to sorting out what the caller is dialing...

It is covered in the wiki page "Asterisk Extension Mapping"

http://www.voip-info.org/tiki-index.php?page=Asterisk+Extension+Matching

This page does an excellent job of explaining the intuitive logic that
Asterisk uses to determine when you are dialing an extension or dialing an
outside number.

To followup on the excellent suggestions thus far, I have concluded...

1) For an office environment, where dialing "9" for an outside line is not
uncommon, the "dial 9" option may make sense for a cleaner implementation.

2) For a home (or small office) environment, where nobody expects to have
to dial a "9", it is better to rely on the Asterisk Extension Mapping
logic.

PLUS...
Numbering your extensions in the "100" to "119" range (or for larger
environments 1000 to 1199) will provide the cleanest interface.  This is
because a leading 1 indicates a long distance call, and the number
following a leading 1 cannot be a "0" or a "1" for long distance. 
Therefore, asterisk can determine with the second digit dialed that you
are dialing an extension, and not a long distance number.

Anyone have any comments on the above suggestions?

> If this topic has been discussed already, please point me to it.  I have
looked, and I don't see any discussion in the past couple of months or
in
> the wiki.
>
> When setting up your inside extensions, it can be helpful to choose the
numbering carefully.  Ideally, you would like it to not conflict with
the
> dialing of an outside number.
>
> For example, the extension...
>
> 1212
>
> Is very similar to dialing a new york long distance number:
>
> 1-212-555.1212
>
> The phone company intentionally avoids some number combinations.  Local
numbers never start with a "1".  This way, the Phone company switch
knows
> that any number that starts with a "1" needs long distance routing.
>
> ------------------
>
> Some switch systems avoid this issue by requiring that extensions dial a
9
> to get an outside number.  This allows the use of any extension numbers
internally, as long as they do not begin with a "9"!
>
> I can setup asterisk to work this way.
>
> ------------------
>
> What would be a wise choice for your extension numbering if you were
just
> setting up a new system?
>
> Is there a "better to use" set of extensions, that avoids confusion with
dialing of external numbers.
>
> ------------------
>
> Or perhaps, I am way off base.  Does asterisk have some magic sauce that
makes this a moot issue?
>
> Thanks in advance.
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