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Actually, call groups are yet another layer of complexity. Let me try
another explanation. With VoIP, the distinction between a call appearance capability and a line is artificial to an extent. Think of a line as the analog for a pair of copper wires. Think of a call appearance as call waiting capability on a line. Well, not exactly, but it works for me. In practice, "lines" are identities as understood by the phone and the SIP server (Asterisk). So when a call arrives, the actual line it arrives on is indicated in some fashion, depending on the phone. It probably has separate line buttons and/or LEDs to indicate which line is ringing or to press to answer. And because there are different lines, you can specify different behaviors to associate with the lines for whatever purpose, such as call forwarding, anonymous call reject, or whatever. Similarly, you may select from the various lines in order to place an outgoing call which affects, among other things, the call record and caller ID. Whether this is useful to you depends on your organizational requirements. This leaves aside the question of how you direct calls to the phone based on your dialplan, which provides another layer of identity in some sense - a topic for a separate discussion, perhaps. On top of this, each identity (line) can have mutliple call appearances. This simply means that you can have multiple calls in progress (originated or answered) simultaneously. The mechanism for managing this varies by phone and configuration. Beyond this, Asterisk can be programmed to ring multiple lines for an incoming call. Call groups/pickup groups, are a way of defining associations so that a user of a line that is not ringing can answer a call directed to another line (or other lines) which is (are) ringing. Does this make sense? Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 10:49:38 -0800 From: Gary Richardson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Hardware recommendations To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 >From my understanding this is more like a 'Key' system than a 'PBX'. You can make all you phones ring when a certain number is dialed. The first one to pick up gets the call. I can't think of exactly what this functionality is called, but I believe there are menus for it in [EMAIL PROTECTED] Perhaps it's call groups? You need to think of asterisk as a multiplexor -- you have x number of lines coming in from the PSTN and y number of phones. Not all phones are active at one time and it is completely indescriminate when it comes to the next available line. It doesn't matter which line gets picked up when you dial 9, just that you get an outside line. You should be able to get your telco to assign the same phone number on mutliple lines and it will ring through to the next available line (similar to how a T1 works). On 1/24/06, Dane Reugger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Maybe I am getting this wrong - every phone I look at says it handles a given number of lines. I don't want to spend the extra for 4 appearances when all I need is 2. Where I must be missing something is: Imagine w/ have 2 appearances phones - no operator - the phones just ring. Lets say a call comes in and its for Joe, Joe picks up another call comes in, this time for Fred - he picks up now a call comes for me - wouldn't their above calls occupy all of our appearances? If not I would think we would need some type of operator forwarding the call to the phones instead of just having them ring. Sorry, I'm not getting it - maybe I'm just too old fashioned. I'm trying to do this as simply and economically as possibly w/o sacrificing quality. Your help is GREATLY appreciated. -Dane Kerry Garrison wrote:You need to separate lines from call appearances. Asterisk has lines (actual phone lines) and phones have call appearances (number of simultaneous calls the phone can handle). You could have 1000 lines going into your Asterisk box but the typical user doesn't need more than 2 - 4 simultaneous calls. On the flip side, you could have 4 "lines" coming into your asterisk server and have 100 phones with 4 call appearances each. By using Asterisk to manage the lines, you don't need 400 phone lines to support 100 phones w/4 call appearances each. Kerry Garrison Publisher - http://GeekGazette.com - http://VOIPSpeak.net (949) 502-7819 x200 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.techdatapros.com-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Dane Reugger Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 9:09 AM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Hardware recommendations If you have 16 call appearances or lines - how do you get to line 16 - type in some code? Adam Goryachev wrote:On Mon, 2006-01-23 at 23:00 -0700, Douglas Garstang wrote:Polycom SoundPoint 601 has 4 'lines'. |
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