Button Presses Not Registering in GV Voicemail

[jra85]

Hi all,

I just set up an Obi200 and GV combination to replace a previous, 9 year old Vonage setup. The Obi200 connects as the "line in" for the house where the POTS landline used to connect, same as I did for the Vonage setup.

I'm able to dial out and receive calls without issue, but button presses are not working within GV Voicemail (and they may not work for any other button prompt-based systems, though I haven't tried any yet). I'm wondering if this has something to do with the way the Obi200 is connecting to the house instead of directly wired into the handset base (which is not an option since I have a home alarm system).

I searched the forums but didn't come up with much other than suggestions to set the DTMFMethod = InBand, but it appears this is already set to InBand and locked by default for Google Voice (I used the ObiHai GV auto-provision tool for setup).

Any suggestions? I'm using new Panasonic cordless phones.

Thanks!

[azrobert]

Assuming GV is defined on SP1 use OBi Expert and go to:
Service Providers -> ITSP Profile A  General -> DTMFMethod
Try the different DTMF methods.
I would try the default of "Auto" first and if that didn't work "RFC2833" next.

This is a general OBi Expert guide:
From the OBiTalk dashboard click Edit Profile on the left column.
At the bottom of the page check "Enable Obi Expert..."
Click Submit Query.
Now you can go directly to OBi Expert from the dashboard.

Click OBi Dashboard.
On the right of your OBixxx is an icon with a red E.
Click on it to enter OBi Expert.

To navigate click on the titles with the +
Then click on a sub-title
An example click on Service Providers
Then click ITSP Profile A General
There are 2 boxes to the right of each setting
To change a setting uncheck the box under ObiTalk Setting
Then uncheck the box under Device Default
Now change the setting
After you have made all the necessary changes for that page, click Submit at the bottom of the page.
OBiTalk will download the configuration changes to the OBi and reboot it.
Wait until this process is complete before continuing to the next page.

[SteveInWA]

Unplug the OBi from your house phone wiring.  Plug a different telephone (not the Panasonic one) into the phone jack on the OBi.  Try calling your GV number again, and see if it recognizes the touch tones.

[jra85]

Thanks guys. Steve, I do not have another phone aside from the current Panasonics to try direct connecting to the Obi. However, I did try changing the DTMF Method to RFC2833 and button presses now register correctly in both GV Voicemail and through a test call website (http://www.testcall.com/222-1111.html). They registered fine outside of GV Voicemail even with the setting as "InBand", but apparently only works with GV when set to RFC2833.

So, what potential issues/concerns might I face when using this DTMF Method rather than the default "InBand" with GV? I fax and have an alarm system that dials out on this line if that has any impact.

[SteveInWA]

Fax doesn't care; DTMF is only used to call the number of the fax machine.

The alarm system may very well care, as alarm panels communicate with the central station using strings of DTMF tones.  You'll just have to test it and see for yourself.  For more reliable alarm communications, you may want to look into a combination cellular/IP communicator.

[jra85]

Thanks again Steve! I'll verify the alarm still works. Understood on the reliability concerns of VoIP/GV with alarm systems, have read up on that in the past but have never had an issue with central station failing to respond when previously connected through Vonage, so I'm giving GV a chance before changing monitoring solutions.

Any insight why InBand would work for DTMF tones on outgoing calls except for GV Voicemail?

[SteveInWA]

I have no idea.  It should work with DTMF set to Auto.

Just a wild-ass guess that it's your Panasonic phone system.  In-band DTMF is just sending the audio sounds generated by the touch-tone keypad on the phone, mixed in with the rest of the audio (your voice, background noise, etc.)  It depends on having a high-quality audio stream to the other end, using the G.711 codec, with few dropouts and low jitter.

That's why I suggested trying a different telephone as a troubleshooting step.

Switching to RFC2833 is telling the network to interpret and then send the tones as separate RTP data packets, thus minimizing negative impacts from the network quality.  As long as the ATA can interpret and encode the DTMF tones it "hears" over the analog interface, there is no issue sending the tones as encoded messages.

If you have trouble sleeping: https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2833.txt

[jra85]

Just to update this thread, I have another Obi200 connected to GV with another Panasonic cordless phone (different model from the phone mentioned in the original post), and the communicating base for this phone is connected directly to the Obi rather than to the house wiring. If I enable the "Use This Service for a Security Alarm Line" option in the settings for SP1 (the GV account), just as I had for the other Obi device that wouldn't respond to button presses in GV Voicemail, it automatically changes the DTMF Method to InBand in the Obi Expert configuration. Upon doing this, GV Voicemail prompts fail to respond to button presses, same as the other Obi setup.

If I disable the "Use This Service for a Security Alarm Line" option, the DTMF method is automatically set to Auto and GV Voicemail correctly responds to button presses with this setting. Which method does the "Auto" setting actually utilize? Does it intelligently pick one based on the service provider being used? Does it always just use RFC2833?

I guess it comes down to the Panasonic phones failing to properly communicate with GV Voicemail when using an InBand DTMF Method, even though it seems to work with other prompt-driven systems (though I have discovered one other system that fails to respond to button presses over the last week). Or maybe it's due to Obi's (or GV's?) handling InBand tones?

EDIT: Did a little searching and found this thread. Looks like this isn't a new problem:
https://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=6281.0

[SteveInWA]

I consider the "use for security alarm" setting to mean:  use the OBi only for an alarm, and not for regular GV use.  Obihai made some undocumented changes to support that feature, and I have no idea what they are.

I seem to recall a setting on Panasonic cordless phones that does something to the DTMF method.  Sorry to be so vague, but I don't use those phones anymore.

Seriously:  for a more reliable security communicator, use a cellular/IP communicator, not an OBi.