[asterisk-users] Is answer() necessary ?

[sean darcy]

Håkon Nessjøen wrote:
> You only need to answer() the call when you want to play audio, or
> music on hold, receive dtmf, etc.
> If you are just sending the incoming call to a Dial() or Queue(without
> music on hold), you don't need to answer.
> The receiving party will do the answering. This way the callee doesn't
> need to pay for the 'ringing'.
> 
> If the call is coming in on a DAHDI connection, and you have a special
> agreement with your telco, you can do something called "early audio".
> To do this, you need to do Progress() call, and then remember to tell
> the asterisk functions you are using, that they should not
> automatically answer the call.
> (Playback etc does this unless you explicitly tell it not to)
> If you are connected to your telco via SIP, i'm not sure how this
> works. I don't have any experience there. But I think it's about the
> same.
> 
> About IVR-prompt and a queue.. Very few telcos, if any, let you
> receive DTMF in early audio. I'm not sure if it is supported in
> asterisk either. So I would say you always need to answer you call if
> you are going to have IVR-prompts before a queue. Asterisk does this
> for you anyways unless you tell it not to, when using functions like
> Background and Playback.
> 
> Regards,
> Håkon
> 
> On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 11:22 AM, jonas kellens <jonas.kellens at telenet.be> wrote:
>> Hello list,
>>
>> is it necessary to properly answer() an incoming call ?
>>
>> I don't want to answer a call because the caller has to pay even if the
>> attached SIP-phones do not answer the phone call. Because I answer() the
>> incoming call, the caller has to pay for 60 seconds of 'ringtone'.
>>
>> On the other hand, sometimes an incoming call is send to a macro where the
>> caller is given the opportunity to leave a voicemail message. It's to late
>> to answer() the call in the macro, but I guess the voicemail()-application
>> automatically anwers the call ??
>>
>> How about an IVR-prompt and a queue ? Do I need to answer the incoming call
>> before playing a voiceprompt and before sending it into a queue ??
>>
>> Greetingz,
>> Jonas.
>> --

Do you have to Answer() to reach the fax extension?

That is assume you have:

[incoming-pstn-line]
exten => fax,1,NoOp(Fax Detected)  ;; the fax line
exten => fax,2,GoTo(incoming-fax,s,1)
exten => fax,n,Hangup()            ;; the fax machine

exten =>s,1,Answer()  ; only answer after __ seconds
exten =>s,n,Wait(3) ; wait to see if it's a fax
exten =>s,n,Dial(${House_Phones},36)  ; this should be six rings

Can I do away with the answer()? And the Wait() I assume?

sean