[Asterisk-Users] Shared Line Appearance

[Kevin P. Fleming]

Sean Cook wrote:

> Ok... I am having a serious brain fart this evening.  IIRC, the next sip
> draft addresses shared lines and I thought I remembered something on the
> list about support for it in the near future.

'the next sip draft'? There are probably 150+ IETF drafts circulating 
regarding SIP functionality... is there a particular one you are 
referring to? I'm not aware of any effort to update/replace RFC3261, and 
shared line appearance wouldn't belong there anyway.

> Is there an implementation for shared line support in asterisk? I know
> that with hint I can "watch" line status... I just want to be able to
> pick up on an extension when ringing or jumping in on a call by punching
> the line.

You are confusing shared line appearance with shared extension 
appearance. It is possible today to watch an extension's status and use 
the key on the phone to either call that extension (if it is not in use) 
or pick up a ringing call at that extension. With some creative dialplan 
programming it may also be possible to force any call that extension is 
involved in into a MeetMe and then join it... thereby joining the call. 
This is all 'shared extension appearance' stuff.

Shared Line Appearance is much more complex to implement, but we are 
very seriously considering doing it in the near future, since there is 
so much demand. Keep in mind that you will _never_ be able to fully 
simulate a key system using Asterisk unless you seriously dumb down the 
Asterisk features that don't make sense for a key system... but we can 
at least get this part functional. Stay tuned :-)