asterisk users - Dec 2003 - Replicating Legacy Phone Behavior

Hello,
	I was demonstrating Asterisk capabilities with a SIP Soft phone to 
a Key system installer yesterday, and we were discussing where Asterisk 
can fit into that market. He brought up some interesting, user-centric 
questions which I couldn't answer. I didn't find anything in google that
realy addressed some of these questions, so I figured I would post them 
here to see what yall have to say. Hopefully, someone has already answered 
this and they can point me to a link or some documentation that I can 
review.
	First and foremost, these Key System installers are big believers 
in VoIP and convergence technologies. While the KSU vendors may see 
Asterisk as competition, the installers on the ground see it as an 
excellent addition to help connect remote offices and workers together, 
but they are driven by the needs of their customers, most of whom want to 
KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). I.E. they want an Asterisk based VoIP 
solution to work in a similar manner to their existing PBX or Phone 
System.
	As a result, these are some of the questions that they threw at me 
that I am trying to figure out:

1. Legacy KSU and PBX users are used to seeing blinking lights on their 
phone that indicate outside lines in use, call on hold, voice mail 
waiting, do not disturb etc.. Is it possible to have these features using 
SIP phones on the dekstop? I.E. if a user puts a caller on hold at one 
extension, can it blink a light on all extensions so that user can be 
picked up at another extension? This gets into issues regarding 
re-training people with new phones etc.. Kind of like the issue of "I 
don't want to press enter to make a call.. Why can't this phone just
work
like my old analog phone?"

2. How does one go about creating call queues and advanced features such 
as UCD and ACD using Asterisk?

3. Is it possible to do Phone to Phone paging with SIP phones? This is a 
feature that I personally use a lot on my Legacy Phone System. I simply 
hit the extension of the persion I want to chat, and it beeps their phone 
and we can talk. Sort of like an Intercom system.

Thanks in advance for helping me to answer these questions!

-- 
    Vice President of N2Net, a New Age Consulting Service, Inc. Company
         http://www.n2net.net Where everything clicks into place!
                             KP-216-121-ST

Greg Boehnlein wrote:
>	First and foremost, these Key System installers are big believers 
>in VoIP and convergence technologies. While the KSU vendors may see 
This has been my experiance as well.  Everybody but PBX vendors like 
VoIP.  The KSU people like it because it gives them more work and job 
security, but the vendors don't like protocols they don't allow them to 
have lock-in.  After all, I can use a mix of phones on my * PBX, but if 
I want a digital phone on my Fujitsu system, I've got to get a Fuji 
phone.  Phones can be like razor blades for Norelco... it's the product 
that keeps on selling itself!
>Asterisk as competition, the installers on the ground see it as an 
>excellent addition to help connect remote offices and workers together, 
>but they are driven by the needs of their customers, most of whom want to 
>KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). I.E. they want an Asterisk based VoIP 
>solution to work in a similar manner to their existing PBX or Phone 
>System
 >
>	As a result, these are some of the questions that they threw at me 
>that I am trying to figure out:
>
>1. Legacy KSU and PBX users are used to seeing blinking lights on their 
>phone that indicate outside lines in use, call on hold, voice mail 
>waiting, do not disturb etc.. Is it possible to have these features using 
>SIP phones on the dekstop? I.E. if a user puts a caller on hold at one 
>extension, can it blink a light on all extensions so that user can be 
>picked up at another extension? This gets into issues regarding 
>re-training people with new phones etc.. Kind of like the issue of "I 
>don't want to press enter to make a call.. Why can't this phone just
work
>like my old analog phone?"
>  
>
Having a DSS (the blinking lights for each extension, short for "Digital
Station Selector") is a feature that I wish Asterisk had.  A week or so
ago there was discussion about a new Windows-based Asterisk application
(Asterisk Call Manager for Windows?) and it was said that in a later
version there was a plan to add a "Console mode" (the name for the
Uberphone that the DSS attaches to).  If I weren't so swamped, I'd ofter
to help out :-).

Figuring out which extensions were busy would be easy with the Manager
API, but I'm not sure how you could forward incoming calls bound for
another extension.  I guess if it were easy enough, I guess I could mke 
a Javax/Swing app to do it.

If there's already an app that does this, I haven't see it, but I'd
love to!
>2. How does one go about creating call queues and advanced features such 
>as UCD and ACD using Asterisk?
>
Take a look at http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk+config+queues.conf
and the pages it references.
>3. Is it possible to do Phone to Phone paging with SIP phones? This is a 
>feature that I personally use a lot on my Legacy Phone System. I simply 
>hit the extension of the persion I want to chat, and it beeps their phone 
>and we can talk. Sort of like an Intercom system.
>  
That would be a phone feature... I think some of the Cisco phones do 
it... it's billed as "AutoAnswer" I think.

Nick

P.S. The Asterisk-users lists are searchable if you want to check if 
your question has been answered before you post.  Also, the 
voip-info.org Wiki is very informative.