[Asterisk-Users] Announcements via IAX phones

[Peter Svensson]

On Sat, 1 Jan 2005, Steve Murphy wrote:

> What I'd like to do:
> Use IAX softphones running on computers, in Auto-answer mode, with sound
> going to speakers, as a sort of public announcement system.
> 
> What isn't working:
> Well, my first experiment was to set up the MeetMe system described on
> the Wiki...
> This works fine for voice announcements. You pick up a phone, dial the
> right extension, and an agi is fired up to put files in the call spool
> to call the autoanswer extensions, simultaneously as it were, and all
> are entered into the same conference. The caller is the admin. You 
> speak, they hear. It works fine. I changed the "kicked" gsm to a beep,
> as the conference is terminated by kicking everyone off, and it
> is kinda comical to end an announcement with "You are kicked from the 
> conference" message at the end...
> 
> But, I need to play automated announcements. So, I whipped together
> an agi to generate the sounds in the right sequence. But, how do I 
> link it to a conference? Since they are not ZAP channels, the softphones
> don't seem to be able to handle the background agi option (the Meetme
> 'b' option), which would have been a potential way to play the sounds to
> the conference.

I think the "local" channel may work out for you. See
   http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk+Local+channels

Point the "local" channel to a context/extension that automatically joins
the meetme as the admin. The context in the call file is then free to play
sounds etc as if the meetme conference was a regular channel.

Peter