News:

On Tuesday September 6th the forum will be down for maintenance from 9:30 PM to 11:59 PM PDT

Main Menu

How to deal with incoming calls when I'm already on the line?

Started by JustBob, February 17, 2012, 09:30:04 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

JustBob

Hello all,

I finished doing a basic setup on my OBI110 with GV on SP1 (outgoing only since I'm in Canada and I don't have a GV number) and voip.ms on SP2 (incoming). Now, if I'm on the line and I receive another call (I was testing with a friend and I told him to place another call to me with his cell phone while we were talking), the phone line just rings and rings and rings (for him), and I hear "beep beep" at regular intervals on my side, which I assume is to notify me that I have another incoming call.

How do I deal with that? Is that a function of voip.ms, i.e. setting up voice mail and then "after 'x' # of rings, go to voice mail" or is that a function of the OBI???

RonR

Simply press the FLASH button on your telephone to place the first call on hold and answer the second one.

If your telephone doesn't have a FLASH button, briefly depress the hook-switch.

To switch back and forth, press the FLASH button again.

JustBob

Ok, my phone has a FLASH button, thanks. My question still stands however, if I'm on an important call and do not want to answer that second call, there has to be a way to send that call to voice mail correct? So would this be a voip.ms setup or an OBI setup?

RonR

I think your only option is to disable Call Waiting.  That can be done by dialing *57 before you make or receive a call that you don't want disturbed.  Dialing *56 will enable it again.

You can also disable it at:

Physical Interfaces -> PHONE Port -> CallWaitingEnable : (unchecked)

Stewart

To elaborate on RonR's comments:

If Call Waiting is disabled and you are on a call, the OBi will present "busy" status to GV or VoIP.ms, or "no answer" status to a line or device connected to the LINE port.  On GV, if Google Chat is the only forwarding phone selected, the caller will immediately get voicemail.  If there are one or more other phones, they will ring normally; if unanswered the caller will get voicemail after 25 seconds.  On VoIP.ms, the caller would normally get voicemail immediately, but if you have a ring group or other fancy routing selected, your other phones could ring.  A landline call would normally be ring-no-answer, but could be picked up by landline's voicemail, or by an answering machine or other phone connected in parallel with the LINE port.

If Call Waiting is enabled and you ignore the beeps, it will beep again after about 10 seconds.  If you ignore that, too, after another 15 seconds (or as programmed for the service involved), the caller will get voicemail.

Some IP phones, which could be connected to GV through the OBi, or directly to VoIP.ms, will show "answer" and "reject" softkeys on call waiting, just like a cell phone.  If you press reject, the caller will immediately get voicemail.

You could connect additional ATAs and/or IP phones, such that when you are on a call, the other phones would ring and could be answered by another person at home.  The two concurrent calls could be on the same service or different services (though obviously only one call on a landline).

DaveSin

Quote from: JustBob on February 17, 2012, 11:03:54 PM
Ok, my phone has a FLASH button, thanks. My question still stands however, if I'm on an important call and do not want to answer that second call, there has to be a way to send that call to voice mail correct? So would this be a voip.ms setup or an OBI setup?

You need to go into your VOIP.ms Portal and setup your Voicemail Box.  Once that is done, you need to:

DID Numbers --> Edit Selection - All Settings at Once --> Additional Failover Options  Click here to display --> Routing if Destination No Answer --> Voicemail

You can also set the number of rings before the call is sent to Voicemail under this heading:

Dial Time Out in seconds  25 s (~5 Rings) (for example)

If the call waiting is not answer, the calls will go to Voicemail after say 25 seconds/5 rings.

JustBob

Considering that my phone usage is fairly low, I'll probably disable call waiting altogether. But at least I'm now aware that there are other options if I change my mind. Thank you all for your responses.