asterisk users - Jan 2005 - Will queueing only work after answering a call?

Hi!

I would like to implement the easiest and most simple form of a queue for 
my home PBX.

I have several phones, and some of them may be unavailble or disconnected 
for various reasons. Currently if one of the phones in the dialplan are 
disconnected * will transfer the call to voicemail immediately.

For this reason I would like to implement a simple queue with ringall 
strategy but, the wiki says that * answers the call first.

In Holland calls are not free and a connection charge applies which means 
that every party calling us will be billed for the called even if we are 
not at home.

Can call queue be used without answering the call first, to keep my 
friends and relatives happy :)

All of the examples and docs in the Wiki are based on corporate use and 
will answer the call first.

In case anyone would have an example config of such use of the queues 
I would be most grateful :)

Thanks!! Remco

> I would like to implement the easiest and most simple form of a queue for 
> my home PBX.
> 
> I have several phones, and some of them may be unavailble or disconnected 
> for various reasons. Currently if one of the phones in the dialplan are 
> disconnected * will transfer the call to voicemail immediately.
> 
> For this reason I would like to implement a simple queue with ringall 
> strategy but, the wiki says that * answers the call first.
> 
> In Holland calls are not free and a connection charge applies which means 
> that every party calling us will be billed for the called even if we are 
> not at home.
> 
> Can call queue be used without answering the call first, to keep my 
> friends and relatives happy :)
> 
> All of the examples and docs in the Wiki are based on corporate use and 
> will answer the call first.
> 
> In case anyone would have an example config of such use of the queues 
> I would be most grateful :)
You might take a look at doing something like this instead of a queue:

[globals]
PHONE1=SIP/3000
PHONE2=SIP/3001
PHONE3=SIP/3002
PHONE4=SIP/3003

[incoming-calls]
exten => s,1,Dial(${PHONE1}&${PHONE2}&${PHONE3}&${PHONE4},20)    
exten => s,2,Voicemail(u3000)
exten => s,102,Voicemail(b3000)
exten => s,103,Hangup

The above will cause all four phones to ring and whichever one answers
the call first gets the call. If no one answers, then a voicemail is
left in mailbox 3000.
>From the telco perspective, the call is not answered until someone picks
up a phone or until the voicemail msg kicks in after 20 seconds of
ringing.

If you want to make that slightly more personalized, then replace
priority 2 with IVR code to say something like... press 1 for xxx,
press 2 for yyy, etc.