[Asterisk-Users] passing through MWI info from SBC

[John Novack]

Mike Myers wrote:

>Hi..  I am about to replace my aging Nortel Venture
>system with an Asterisk system and 6 Polycom IP 501
>phones, and a couple sipura 841's for less used areas.
>
>We have 3 phone lines here.  One is SBC, one Vonage,
>and one Voipjet...  One hangup is that I can't figure
>out how to pass through a voicemail waiting indication
>from SBC.  This is important because my wife and her
>family all exchange voicemails with each other on the
>SBC voicemail system.  They can leave messages for
>each other without having the phones ring, etc...  We
>have a 2 yr old at home, and her sister has some small
>kids too, so that's how they manage to send voicemails
>when they are unsure if the kids are sleeping, etc... 
>Anyway, preserving this capability of using the SBC VM
>and being notified when a message is waiting is
>critical for good WAF.  
>
>The vonage line and voipjet line can be intergrated
>into the Asterisk VM.  My Nortel venture phones light
>the MWI if any line has VM on it, and the display
>tells you which lines have VM waiting.  I would love
>to be able to duplicate this function on the Polycom's
>and hopefully the Sipura's as well.
>
>I've looked for answers on this, but haven't found
>one, hence the post.  My apologies if I have missed
>something.  
>
>Thanks much,
>Mike
>  
>
You haven't missed much.
With SBC you are out of luck, since Asterisk doesn't detect dialtone  ( 
it dials blind, sometimes too quickly for the CO to catch the first 
digit, resulting in wrong numbers )) or stutter dialtone either, and 
reportedly has had any indication of the DC status of a POTS line 
removed due to problems.
 
Only choice would to port the number to a VOIP provider and provide the 
VM in Asterisk.
Similar problem with Vonage VM.

John Novack