News:

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

Main Menu

Call Screening with Google Voice

Started by rectalogic, September 19, 2014, 03:09:32 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

rectalogic

I set up an OBi200 with Google Voice and it can make and receive calls. But when I answer an incoming call it immediately answers, I don't get the call screening option to press 1 to accept or 2 to screen. In my GV account I have "Call Screening" set to "On". The FAQ describes how to disable call screening, but I want to enable it.
http://www.obihai.com/faq/GV-and-the-OBi/turn-off-GV-call-screening

rectalogic

I tried logging into the device admin and unchecking the X_SkipCallScreening option, but that didn't change anything.

SteveInWA

Hi:

Call screening isn't working via the current implementation of GV-->OBi calling.  Instead, you would need to obtain an inbound SIP VoIP phone number (also known as a DID) from a carrier like Callcentric or voip.ms for example, configure your OBi with that DID number, and configure your GV Phones setting page to forward your calls to that DID number instead of to Google Chat.  The other advantage of this method, is that you'll generally get caller ID name, too.

Taoman

Quote from: SteveInWA on September 19, 2014, 03:25:14 PM
Call screening isn't working via the current implementation of GV-->OBi calling.  Instead, you would need to obtain an inbound SIP VoIP phone number (also known as a DID) from a carrier like Callcentric.........

Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see how that solves the problem of no call screening. If you are referring to Callcentric call treatments my experience has been that they don't work when a Google Voice number is called because GV doesn't support early media. And as far as I can tell, all the Callcentric call treatments involve early media except for redirect to fax or an extension.

Please correct me if I'm wrong on this. In fact, I'd love to be proven wrong on this. Callcentric call treatments work great when I call the DID directly but when forwarding from Google Voice they don't work. Consequently, no call screening.

SteveInWA

Hi Taoman:

Sorry; I don't understand your post.

The original poster was asking about this scenario:  They have enabled Google Voice's call screening feature, which allows the GV user to press 1 to accept an inbound call, or press 2 to send it to GV VM.

If GV is forwarding to, and thus ringing a Google Chat client (or, an OBi pretending to be one), GV implements its call screening feature differently, and so GV isn't interacting with the OBi to control call screening.

If GV forwards the call to a forwarding phone number, such as a mobile or landline number, including SIP VoIP ITSPs like Callcentric, then yes, the feature does work, and the user can enter the 1 or 2 to control the handling of the call. 

It's possible that some ITSPs may be incompatible with GV, if they are also doing something with early media on their own system (not GV's system), but I have been using GV call screening with Callcentric for several years, and it works perfectly.  The key here is that GV needs to detect that the called party has answered the phone call, not whether GV is, itself, using early media.

If that is not what you were asking, please try again.

Taoman

Quote from: SteveInWA on September 19, 2014, 08:11:07 PM
Hi Taoman:

Sorry; I don't understand your post.


I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought you were saying GV call screening doesn't work, in any scenario, and that you would have to use a call treatment like those available on Voip.ms and Callcentric (Telemarketer Block, for instance). My point was that Callcentric call treatments do not work when a Google Voice number is forwarded to a Callcentric DID.

SteveInWA

Quote from: Taoman on September 19, 2014, 08:32:46 PM
Quote from: SteveInWA on September 19, 2014, 08:11:07 PM
Hi Taoman:

Sorry; I don't understand your post.


I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought you were saying GV call screening doesn't work, in any scenario, and that you would have to use a call treatment like those available on Voip.ms and Callcentric (Telemarketer Block, for instance). My point was that Callcentric call treatments do not work when a Google Voice number is forwarded to a Callcentric DID.

I think you now understand that's not what I meant.  However, I can confirm that the Callcentric call treatments I am using on my CC numbers that are being used as GV forwarding numbers do work, too.  I haven't tested every treatment scenario, so perhaps some are non-functional.  But, for example, simultaneous ringing to numerous different CC extensions works for me, as does simultaneously forwarding to an external number.