[Asterisk-Users] Re: passing through MWI info from SBC

[John Novack]

Mike Myers wrote:

>John Novack wrote:
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>>Mike Myers wrote:
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>>>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
>>>      
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>areas.
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>>>We have 3 phone lines here.  One is SBC, one Vonage,
>>>and one Voipjet...  One hangup is that I can't
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>figure
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>>>out how to pass through a voicemail waiting
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>indication
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>>>from SBC.  This is important because my wife and her
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>>>family all exchange voicemails with each other on
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>the
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>>>SBC voicemail system.  They can leave messages for
>>>each other without having the phones ring, etc... 
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>We
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>>>have a 2 yr old at home, and her sister has some
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>small
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>>>kids too, so that's how they manage to send
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>voicemails
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>>>when they are unsure if the kids are sleeping,
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>etc... 
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>>>Anyway, preserving this capability of using the SBC
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>VM
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>>>and being notified when a message is waiting is
>>>critical for good WAF.  
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>>>The vonage line and voipjet line can be intergrated
>>>into the Asterisk VM.  My Nortel venture phones
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>light
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>>>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
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>Polycom's
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>>>and hopefully the Sipura's as well.
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>>>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
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>>>
>> 
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>>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
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>a POTS line 
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>>removed due to problems.
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>>Only choice would to port the number to a VOIP 
>>provider and provide the 
>>VM in Asterisk.
>>Similar problem with Vonage VM.
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>>John Novack
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>Wow, this is a serious problem for me.  I don't need
>to actually check the voicemail itself from Asterisk,
>just to be able to tell that there is voicemail
>waiting.  Are you saying there is no way in Asterisk
>to do this?   Is that true for using Digium hardware
>as well as FXO ports on a SIP ATA?  
>
>Vonage VM doesn't matter to me, since I'll turn it off
>and use Asterisk for that functionality, but
>determining SBC's VM status is very important.  My
>whole wife's family (multiple households) uses it.  In
>the past, if one family tried to switch to a non SBC
>provider, they always returned in less than a week
>because of lack of VM interoperation. So my wife will
>put the kibosh on the whole Asterisk project unless I
>can light the MWI light when SBC VM is waiting.  Since
>the cheapest analog phones can do this, I don't think
>she's going to understand that these $200 Polycom
>phones can't...  :-(
>
>Is there no way around this?
>
>Thanks,
>Mike
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AFAIK, there is no way around this with a POTS line.
SBC's only indication of MW is stutter dial tone, correct?

Since Asterisk doesn't detect ANY sort of dialtone, either with the X100 
or TDM400, it seems you are out of luck.
AFAIK, the ATA's don't detect stutter dial tone either, though some may 
listen for dialtone before dialing.

Perhaps some others can offer a solution.
Curious, since a cheap $20 box sitting on your line can give you a 
visual indication.

What are you doing now with the Nortel? Does it know?

BTW - the Sipura 841 is an OK inexpensive phone, but speakerphone and 
display are unusable.
A somewhat better buy is the Grandstream. At least you can read the 
display. Speakerphone suffers from echo, and it has no built in echo 
canceller.
The more expensive brands are , well, too expensive and seem difficult 
to configure.

JMO

John Novack