Forward Active Call

[Hortoristic]

So GV allows me to hit * during a call and then all my GV phones will ring so I can answer active call on another phone that's registered with GV.

Will the Obi device do something similar but allow me to forward an active call to another number, either on speed dial or one I punch in?  Sometimes people call my home for my wife's bushiness and I would rather forward the call to her cell than tell them to get a pen and write down her cell number to dial.

It's hard to distinguish sometimes between GV features and Obi features.

[Stewart]

You would establish a three-way call, announce the caller to your wife, then hang up.  See "Call Transfer" in OBi admin guide.

[RonR]

Or ask the caller to hold while you transfer the call (Blind Transfer):

Hook-Flash (wait for dialtone) -> *98 (wait for dialtone) -> dial number or Speed Dial followed by # -> hang up

[Hortoristic]

The blind transfer was exactly what I wanted!

[Stewart]

The blind transfer was exactly what I wanted!

Warn your wife before starting to use blind transfer.  When her cell rings, she will see your caller ID, not that of the original caller.  You don't want the customer to hear "Hi, honey, I'm just finishing up at the beauty parlor."

[Hortoristic]

Ouch - that part sucks!  Maybe 3 way is the way because of that. We tend to say much riskier things.

[Everton]

The blind transfer was exactly what I wanted!

Warn your wife before starting to use blind transfer.  When her cell rings, she will see your caller ID, not that of the original caller.  You don't want the customer to hear "Hi, honey, I'm just finishing up at the beauty parlor."

Assuming you have "regular" voip provider such as anveo setup on SP2 and you have it setup on the web portal to pass thru original CID, is it possible to do a blind transfer using, lets say, SP2 as the trunk for the blind transfer?  In other words, is it possible to select which trunk is used for blind transfer if the original call came in on SP1, which is setup with GV?  Can the blind transfer be done as:

Hook-Flash (wait for dialtone) -> *98 (wait for dialtone) -> **2 + dial number or Speed Dial followed by # -> hang up

[Stewart]

Assuming you have "regular" voip provider such as anveo setup on SP2 and you have it setup on the web portal to pass thru original CID, is it possible to do a blind transfer using, lets say, SP2 as the trunk for the blind transfer?

This is a really tough one, because the OBi has so many restrictions on caller ID spoofing.

I can think of only two ways that should work:

1. If the original call comes in via a "regular" provider that supports call transfer, e.g. Callcentric, and you use that provider when blind transferring, you can set up the OBi to do a SIP REFER (see page 63 of manual).  The transfer happens at the provider (the OBi does not need to bridge the call and just drops off) and the original caller's number gets passed as caller ID.  I don't know whether this will work with Anveo.

2. If the call comes in via GV (and therefore must be bridged), for spoofing to work in the OBi, the SP2 provider must be one that accepts the caller ID in the From header.  However, the vast majority of providers require you to put your account number there.  It would work with a provider that accepts your account number in Auth ID, with an arbitrary From, but unfortunately AFAIK, Flowroute is the only one.  Otherwise, you could use a provider that doesn't require your account number at all, i.e. they authenticate by IP address.  Most "wholesale" providers work that way, but many require minimum payments or volume commitments that are impractical for residential or small business use.  Voxbeam is an exception (minimum top-up is $50 and expires after one year, so any usage >$4/mo. is feasible).