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looking for feedback: giving a kid their own landline phone

Started by ericalanwhitney, August 31, 2020, 07:00:49 PM

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ericalanwhitney

Greetings all,

I've been working a project for a while that is finally nearly finished: giving my 7-year-old son a rotary phone that can only make and receive calls from a predetermined list of speed dial numbers. It essentially gives him a way to call his grandparents, his best friend, his aunt, etc, whenever he wants, and also receive calls from them. He loves the physical phone and the need to spin the rotary, and I love hearing a real phone bell ringing in the house.

Here's the basic components of the setup:

  • Create a Google Voice phone number
  • Set up the Google Voice phone number to be working on an OBi200
  • Add in seven speed dial numbers (for numbers 2 through 8, as 1 and 9 can't be used)
  • Block all outgoing calls except speed dials
  • Block all incoming calls except speed dials

And here's additional bells and whistles I've added on:

  • add an analog phone adapter to allow use of a rotary phone (www.dialgizmo.com)
  • add an ethernet-to-wifi adapter to eliminate the need for a wired ethernet connection to the OBi200
  • set Google Voice voicemail greeting to be a repeating busy tone for 20 seconds, discouraging anyone from leaving a message (as it is not monitored)

This has been great fun for my son, and I'm making an identical setup to give to his best friend (another 7-year-old), so they can call each other whenever they want.

So why am I posting? I'd love feedback from folks on how I configured the OBi200 unit, and see if there's any advice on how I can improve the overall config. Here's more specifics on the configuration:

Add in speed dial numbers
I did this via the normal method of logging into my OBiTALK account, and in the "OBi Dashboard" section I selected "Speed Dials" and set up the numbers there. I'm content with only having singl-digit speed dials.

  • Wanted to confirm there is no way to use speed dial #1 or #9?
  • Is there any way to have the speed dial number saved in a User-Defined Digit Map? Would be nice to have only one place where I update the phone numbers that are allowed, rather than having to update twice (see below for where I need to update this for inbound call whitelist).

Block all outgoing calls except speed dials
Went to "Physical Interfaces -> PHONE 1" and modified "DigitMap" value to: ([2-8]S0|(Mpli))

  • Any suggestions on improving this?

Block all incoming calls except speed dials
First created a User-Defined Digit Map named "Whitelist" that manually listed out all the numbers I wanted calls to come through on. Then went to "Voice Services -> SP1 Service" and modified "X_InboundCallRoute" value to: {(MWhitelist):ph}

  • Any suggestions on improving this?

Thank you in advance for any help with fine-tuning this project. Totally recommend this for anyone with young kids!

azrobert

#1
I see a problem with your config. The phone digit map is used to validate the dialed number. The (Mpli) points to the Primary line's digit map and those rules are included with the Phone digit map rules. If you didn't make any other modifications, you are allowing any outbound number. Just remove the (Mpli) to fix.

I know speed dial #1 is reserved for the softphone, but why can't you use #9?

You can define SD#10 then when 1 is dialed, change it to 10.  You don't need the "S0".

(1<0>|[2-9])

Or you can change 1 to the number you want to call:
(<1:8005551212>|[2-9])

You can use this method or the star code method to define zero as a speed dial.

Edit:

There is another method to define SD#1. Star codes don't have to begin with a star, so define define Star code 1.

DigitMap:
([2-9])

Star Code:
1, Speed Dial 1, call(6235941000)

A 3rd method is to modify Speed Dial#1 locally. This may or may not work. Login locally by entering the OBi200's IP address into a browser. The default userid and password are both "admin". Check Speed Dial#1 and if it's not grayed out just modify it and re-boot, but 1st you must disable OBitalk Auto-Provisioning. Now you won't be able to configure the OBi200 via OBiTalk.

System Manage -> Auto Provisioning -> OBiTalk Provisioning -> Method: Disabled

ericalanwhitney

Hi azrobert,

Super appreciative of your reply, you've helped so many folks here! I did try removing the (Mpli) from my DigitMap, leaving only:

([1-9]S3)

And now I only get a busy tone whenever dialing any speed dials. The only other adjustments I've made from a stock OBi200 configured with Google Voice are what you see above. Do you know what could be causing this?

azrobert

I tried the exact same digit map on my OBi110 and it worked. I also have an OBi200, but I don't want to screw with it. I'm sure it would work. Sometimes something gets corrupted. It happened to me twice and things stopped working. Try creating another User Digitmap and call it sd with a digit map ([1-9]) then change the Phone digit map to (Msd)

If a dialed number matches a rule in the digit map and it can't match another rule with additional digits, there will be no delay. If it can match another rule with additional digits, there will be a 2 second delay. When you dial a single digit with your digit map, it can't match another rule (there are none) therefore no delay. The S0 is redundant.

ericalanwhitney

Hi azrobert,

So another data point on this: I'm looking to get two phone set up, so my son and his best friend can call each other on physical phones. This is a brand-new Obi200 I'm using, set up with a fresh Google account with newly-assigned Google Voice number. Steps followed:

1. Created new Google account
2. Created new Google Voice number associated with Google account
3. Created new ObiTalk account associated with Google account
4. Set up Google Voice on brand-new Obi200; tested calling, works
6. Set a phone number in speed dial; tested dialing speed dial, works
7. Edited DigitMap under "Physical Interfaces -> PHONE 1" to be ([2-9]), tested dialing speed dial, get busy tone

Essentially I've replicated the issue with a brand-new setup. Any ideas? Are we 100% certain that "Physical Interfaces -> PHONE 1" is the correct DigitMap to adjust?

Appreciate all your help!


azrobert

Yes, the Phone 1 DigitMap needs to be modified.

Try this:

Physical Interfaces -> Phone 1 Port -> DigitMap: (***|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9)

If that doesn't work try this:

Physical Interfaces -> Phone 1 Port -> DigitMap: (Msd)

User Settings -> User Defined Digit Maps -> User Defined Digit Map 2
Label: sd
DigitMap: (***|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9)

Make sure you're using the current firmware. I'm at 5921EX.
Download here:
http://fw.obihai.com/OBi202-3-2-2-5921EX-332148940.fw

Lavarock7

In my youth I enjoyed creating all sorts of neat projects like this one where I re-invented the world. However, most of what you want is already in place if you choose a VOIP supplier rather than GoogleVoice.

Using Voip.MS for example, you can create a whitelist for receiving calls and even send them to voicemail during dinner or after hours. You can block whole area codes inbound if you want. They (along with Obi) have speed dials you can set up.

Granted, calls with them and other services are not free like Googlevoice, but for what you propose will cost next to nothing.
My websites: Kona Coffee: http://itskona.com and Web Hosting: http://planetaloha.info<br />A simplified Voip explanation: http://voip.planet-aloha.com