OBi110+ 1GV+ 1 PSTN, + SAME GV as VONAGE EXTENSION

[smart4x4pro]

1st Part Good!
Hi I have the Following setup all incoming calls to Office (PSTN) on OBi110 are bridged to my  GV  forwarded to my Mobile Phone fine there.


2nd Part trying to figure out
Consider the active forward all the time described on the 1st part, I want to call the office PSTN from my mobile and automatically forward the call with the OBi110 with GV to my Vonage Access number witch lets me call free to anywhere. (I have my GV registered as a Vonage extension)

I am a little confused should I add my mobile number to my circle of trust or use AA?

Thanks in advance for any help!

[QBZappy]

smart4x4pro

If what you are trying to get is making a free call in North America using the OBI, why don't you just make it using GV, like this:

POTS-line InboundCallRoute -> {(514xxxxxxx):aa}

Circle of Trust (COT) configures the AA just so. That might have been the confusing part. Putting Vonage into the loop might be unnecessary unless you have a reason for it, other than the call being free.

Are you trying to get the Vonage CID instead of the GV CID to show on the call?

[smart4x4pro]

Thanks for the reply

Office Number in the Caribbean PSTN

GV USA

Vonage Extensions USA

Mobile Number Caribbean can make free Calls to Office on PSTN on OBi

Mobile +Vonage Extension with GV = Free Calls All the WORLD!

So I need for the OBi to recognize my Mobile and Automatically Dial my extension number and Pin.

From there I can call Free The World!

[Stewart]

If you want a call from your mobile to your office number to bridge directly to Vonage extensions, you could use e.g.:
LINE Port->InboundCallRoute: {(12223334444):SP1(13334445555)},{ph}
where 12223334444 is your mobile number and 13334445555 is the Vonage Extensions access number.

This would allow you to make Vonage calls from your mobile using two-stage dialing instead of three-stage dialing (calling the office number would get you directly to the Vonage prompt).  With most modern mobiles, you could program your contact list with a pause, to completely automate the call.  However, you would no longer have the option of using GV directly and would have to go through Vonage.  You also would be unable to call your office directly, unless you blocked caller ID or your office has another incoming number.

There may be a less expensive and/or more convenient solution to the overall problem.  Vonage World is not cheap and their rates to destinations not covered by the plan are quite high.  Also, you may be able to use the callback function of your OBi to save on cellular minutes.  Which Caribbean country are you in?  Which countries do you call the most?  Landlines or cellular?  Approximate monthly usage?  Does your cellular plan provide unlimited calling to your office number?  To other numbers in your country?

[smart4x4pro]

Thanks for the reply

The main Vonage number is not paid by me I only pay the $9.99 of the Vonage extension.

Country Dominican Republic of Office and Mobile.

Free unlimited call from Mobile DR to office DR

Free unlimited calls from GV USA with Vonage Extension USA to anywhere in the world Mobile or Land line.( Vonage has a limit of 3000 minutes/month or 283 minutes per call, I have never gone to the limit)

I call Local Numbers DR, Mobile Numbers DR and Local and 1-800 Numbers in the USA mainly. Another catch, calls to the office are routed to follow me to my mobile same line I want to call back to the office (free) and would like to make calls for free that way I dont have to be in the office to call everyone for free.

[Stewart]

Another catch, calls to the office are routed to follow me to my mobile same line I want to call back to the office (free) and would like to make calls for free that way I dont have to be in the office to call everyone for free.

How are you doing the "follow me" function?  Even if the OBi is involved, there should not be a conflict with your outbound bridging, because normal incoming calls to your office number will have a caller ID different from your mobile.

Do you have a Vonage device at your DR office?

[smart4x4pro]

Office: Obi110 with GV and PSTN Regular Land Line in Dom Rep

Vonage Extension USA is GV number

Mobile Number is Dominican Republic based

I can call Free from Mobile to Office.

I just need the Obi to route my Mobile to Vonage Extension

Vonage Service with a ATA is not present in this equation.

all Incoming calls to my Office are Forwared  with *72 1112223333 from my GV to my Mobile here every thing is fine

I want to call with my Mobile to My Office and this unique number be auto forwared to my Voange Extension from there I can call any where.
Thanks

[Stewart]

Try the suggested InboundCallRoute setting and report whether it works properly.  It should not affect other calls into your office in any way.  If it doesn't work, check the Call History on the OBi, to confirm that the caller ID received exactly matches what you set in the route.

On the *72 forwarding from office landline to your mobile, are those calls included in your plan?  If not, what is the per minute rate?  If it's high, there may be a way for the OBi to do that forwarding at lower cost.

[smart4x4pro]

Ok Partial Succes

This worked

LINE Port->InboundCallRoute: {(12223334444):SP1(13334445555)},{ph}

with 2 observations

1 Had to take out the 1st 1: InboundCallRoute: {(2223334444):SP1(13334445555)},{ph}
2 If the forward is enabled  the inboundCallRoute does not work,it does not call my Vonage Acces to be able to call internationally.

I will probably need to figure out my forward rules in a way that it is conditional to me calling

So all calls are routed on the forward, but if I call it forwards to my Vonage Access Number

[Stewart]

Please explain how you are doing the forwarding.  Is this a service provided by your PSTN line?  Something you do in the OBi?

[RonR]

smart4x4pro,

Call Forwarding and Do Not Disturb using Star Codes (for example, *72) totally disables InboundCalRoute rule processing on the SP1, SP2, and LINE Port trunks.  This is a limitation intentionally built into the OBi for a very strange marketing reason and will be removed in a future generation of OBi's.  IOW, if you're using InboundCallRoute rules other than a single 'ph', you can't use Call Forwarding or Do Not Disturb Star Codes in the OBi100/OBi110.

If you wish to have InboundCallRoute rules processed, you also have to accomplish your forwarding via InboundCallRoute rules.

[Everton]

smart4x4pro,

This is a limitation intentionally built into the OBi for a very strange marketing reason and will be removed in a future generation of OBi's.  

Do you care to elaborate what this strange marketing reason is?  Also, you stated that it will be removed on "future generation of OBi's"...does that mean it cannot be removed by firmware enhancements and users will have to buy a new OBi ATA to take advantage of these currently disabled features?

This whole thing seems like a farce to me and users will be really pissed if what is implied is indeed true!

[smart4x4pro]

Thanks RonR for the explanation

I see after doing some reading you are Number 1 around here! Great to have you on my post.

So I should make my inbound like:

All calls from  12223334444 forward to 1333444555 using GV all other calls forward to 16667778888 using GV

{(222333444):SP1(1333444555)},{SP1(16667778888)}

If this is correct please confirm and a BIG THANKYOU for the help

[smart4x4pro]

smart4x4pro,

This is a limitation intentionally built into the OBi for a very strange marketing reason and will be removed in a future generation of OBi's.  

Do you care to elaborate what this strange marketing reason is?  Also, you stated that it will be removed on "future generation of OBi's"...does that mean it cannot be removed by firmware enhancements and users will have to buy a new OBi ATA to take advantage of these currently disabled features?

This whole thing seems like a farce to me and users will be really pissed if what is implied is indeed true!

Everton thankyou for taking the time to read my post

After I got it to work NOW I understand basically the reason for this that if you simply forward you cannot  take advantage of  all the calling features for the newbie like me its a trial and error but after you learn it is awsome.

Thanks to RonR for giving the info YOU ARE THE MAN

[RonR]

All calls from  12223334444 forward to 1333444555 all other calls forward to 16667778888

{(222333444):SP1(1333444555)},{SP1(16667778888)}

{12223334444:sp(13334445555)},{sp(16667778888)}

The parenthesis are only required when evaluating an imbedded DigitMap and the leading '1' must be included if it's part of the incoming CallerID.

[RonR]

This is a limitation intentionally built into the OBi for a very strange marketing reason and will be removed in a future generation of OBi's.  

Do you care to elaborate what this strange marketing reason is?  Also, you stated that it will be removed on "future generation of OBi's"...does that mean it cannot be removed by firmware enhancements and users will have to buy a new OBi ATA to take advantage of these currently disabled features?

This whole thing seems like a farce to me and users will be really pissed if what is implied is indeed true!

When I originally discovered this problem, I assumed it was a bug or simply a design oversight:

InboundCallRoute vs Calling Features Evaluation Order Problem

When I didn't get a response, I sent numerous lengthy emails to Obihai pointing out the seriousness of the problem and explaining how easy it is to fix by simply reordering a couple of lines of code in the OBi firmware.  Much to my surprise the exchanges were finally terminated by the following declaration from Obihai:

"We do not have a misunderstanding.  The point I am making in my message is that the OBi device is designed for personal use.  Enabling SIP/PSTN, SIP/SIP, SIP/GV, GV/PSTN gateway calling is not part of the current design.  In the future we will have a product(s) that will do this.  For today's product, the OBiTALK to SIP/GV/PSTN gateway / bridging is exactly how we designed the product."

Clearly, the current (mis-)ordering of the code to prevent the use of Call Forwarding and Do Not Disturb in conjunction with InboundCallRoute processing on anything but the OBiTALK trunk is intentional.  Apparently, Obihai did not intend for users to make full use of the InboundCallRoutes on the SP1, SP2, and LINE Port trunks in the OBi100/OBi110 products.

[Everton]

Now I get it!!  They do not want to provide ALL possible features in the current OBi devices.  They want to be able to sell a second generation OBi with additional features and possibly a third generation device with another set of features.  I thoroughly understand their motivation, since petty much all product manufacturers do the same thing.  I wish the source code was available so that third party hacking community could develop these features without the Obihai involvement.  Is there such a thing as a reverse engineering the firmware?

[Stewart]

{(222333444):SP1(1333444555)},{SP1(16667778888)}

Sorry, I did not realize that you were using GV to forward to your DO mobile.  Assuming that you are paying GV $0.11/min. and have heavy usage, you may want to consider an alternative.  This could be set up as SP2 in your OBi or (if it's already in use for another provider) as a Gateway.  Charges are rounded to next minute except as noted.  Quality ratings are my personal opinion.

Easyvoip: $0.05/min. + $0.039 connect fee, not the best quality nor most reliable, but many find it adequate.  Probably won't pass caller ID.

Voxbeam: $0.0776/min., billed only for actual seconds connected.  Excellent quality and support, but $50 minimum top-up and authentication by IP address only.  Small credit given at startup for testing.

Callcentric: $0.0847/min.  Excellent quality and support, but may not pass caller ID correctly.

Localphone: $0.089/min.  Good quality and support.  Probably passes caller ID without leading 1.  Small credit given at startup for testing.

It may also be possible to forward to your DO mobile for free or nearly free, by using your Vonage account.  Unfortunately, I believe that you would need to send the destination number to Vonage by DTMF, which the OBi cannot do by itself, so another intermediate provider would be needed.

[Ostracus]

Now I get it!!  They do not want to provide ALL possible features in the current OBi devices.  They want to be able to sell a second generation OBi with additional features and possibly a third generation device with another set of features.  I thoroughly understand their motivation, since petty much all product manufacturers do the same thing.  I wish the source code was available so that third party hacking community could develop these features without the Obihai involvement.  Is there such a thing as a reverse engineering the firmware?

Possible, and I can see as well why Obihai is doing what they are, after all they really only have an inexpensive piece of hardware (them and us) to sell. No services or support to speak of to sell to others. I still think they should go for the business market with their much higher requirements. Maybe expand upon the "cheap PBX in a box" theme? They can do for hardware what Asterisk did for software?

[smart4x4pro]

{(222333444):SP1(1333444555)},{SP1(16667778888)}

Sorry, I did not realize that you were using GV to forward to your DO mobile.  Assuming that you are paying GV $0.11/min. and have heavy usage, you may want to consider an alternative.  This could be set up as SP2 in your OBi or (if it's already in use for another provider) as a Gateway.  Charges are rounded to next minute except as noted.  Quality ratings are my personal opinion.

Easyvoip: $0.05/min. + $0.039 connect fee, not the best quality nor most reliable, but many find it adequate.  Probably won't pass caller ID.

Voxbeam: $0.0776/min., billed only for actual seconds connected.  Excellent quality and support, but $50 minimum top-up and authentication by IP address only.  Small credit given at startup for testing.

Callcentric: $0.0847/min.  Excellent quality and support, but may not pass caller ID correctly.

Localphone: $0.089/min.  Good quality and support.  Probably passes caller ID without leading 1.  Small credit given at startup for testing.

It may also be possible to forward to your DO mobile for free or nearly free, by using your Vonage account.  Unfortunately, I believe that you would need to send the destination number to Vonage by DTMF, which the OBi cannot do by itself, so another intermediate provider would be needed.

My Setup is One of a kind I have a database of clients that want always to speak to me.

I have a assistant that only picks up the phone when I cant, prior me notifying her.

PSTN  Land Line "Comapny X" I also have a Blackberry from company X and they let me call for free to the office.

Office I have a OBi with GV and my GV is a extension for a Vonage service that a client assigned me and I pay $9.99 for the extension witch has the same benefits of the main line the whole World for free. Since I need to receive the calls for this client the main number of Vonage is forwarded to where I want.

Here is my setup If you call my office the call is routed to the Main Vonage and It Rings on my iPhone and Blackberry at the same time.

If I call with my Blackberry to the office I can call any where for free, the Vonage extension lets me do that.

If I travel I forward the Vonage anywhere I am and still recieve the calls and with the OBi I can call any where for free from almost anywhere.