Does anyone know what would be involved in making Asterisk work as a voicemail system in a Centrex environment? We have a Centrigram voicemail system that belongs in the Smithsonian. There are analog lines coming into the box and a 56KB data feed from the phone company's switch. Peter
Darren McIntosh
2003-Dec-11 18:10 UTC
[Asterisk-Users] Re: Asterisk in a Centrex environment?
> Message: 6 > Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 08:18:53 -0500 > From: Peter Pauly <ppp@freeshell.org> > To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com > Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Asterisk in a Centrex environment? > Reply-To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com > > Does anyone know what would be involved in making > Asterisk work as a voicemail system in a Centrex > environment? We have a Centrigram voicemail system > that belongs in the Smithsonian. There are analog > lines coming into the box and a 56KB data feed from > the phone company's switch. > > Peter >Asterisk would need to be able to set the message waiting indicator. This is often done over the SimpleMessageDeskInterface (that could be the 56k link) I found this link in the archives http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-dev/2003-June/000884.html SMDI has been mentioned as something good to have. SMDI has a lot of other functionality, but for message waiting there are two directives required: Set message waiting on :- "OP:MWI {dn}! EOT" Set message waiting off:- "RMV:MWI {dn}! EOT" These messages are usually sent via serial port or ascii tcp connection. The method of message waiting (lamp, stutter tone etc) is implemented on the switch. An analog system would also need to understand the other parts of SMDI that identify the forwarded party, I'm not too familiar with those. Better if you could do PRI... darren
Peter Pauly wrote:>Does anyone know what would be involved in making >Asterisk work as a voicemail system in a Centrex >environment? We have a Centrigram voicemail system >that belongs in the Smithsonian. There are analog >lines coming into the box and a 56KB data feed from >the phone company's switch. > >Note that I'm no expert on this kind of configuration, but this sounds pretty easy. Get a channel bank (or better yet, just get a T1 from the ILEC) and a Digium card. Configuring voicemail and extensions is pretty easy, just look at voicemail.conf. The only puzzling part is the data feed... what's it for, determining which line is ringing which voicemail box? If so, perhaps it can be converted to DNIS on the T1?
We had a Centigram solution. The data circuit, or more commonly a serial link, is used to signal the which analog line is about to receive a call and why (No answer, Busy, direct, etc). Without the serial connection, or if the lines were plugged in a different order than they were identified in the Centigram software, calls ended up in the main greeting instead of the mailbox they were intended for. Dan -----Original Message----- From: Nick Bachmann [mailto:asterisk@not-real.org] Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 6:22 PM To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Asterisk in a Centrex environment? Peter Pauly wrote:>Does anyone know what would be involved in making >Asterisk work as a voicemail system in a Centrex >environment? We have a Centrigram voicemail system >that belongs in the Smithsonian. There are analog >lines coming into the box and a 56KB data feed from >the phone company's switch. > >Note that I'm no expert on this kind of configuration, but this sounds pretty easy. Get a channel bank (or better yet, just get a T1 from the ILEC) and a Digium card. Configuring voicemail and extensions is pretty easy, just look at voicemail.conf. The only puzzling part is the data feed... what's it for, determining which line is ringing which voicemail box? If so, perhaps it can be converted to DNIS on the T1? _______________________________________________ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users