asterisk users - Apr 2004 - X100P and NTL (ex Cable + Wireless)

Firstly, let me just say I am new to asterisk and if anything I've said 
is covered in an FAQ or in previous posts I apologise but I have tried 
searching and I've attempted a few of the things I found but they didn't
help.

Has anybody got any experience using an X100P on an NTL phone line in 
the UK (I'm in an ex Cable & Wireless area if that makes any
difference).

The problem I'm having (and judging by the number of references to it 
I've found searching it is a common one) is getting * to detect when the 
line has been hung up.  It doesn't matter if it comes through to a 
person directly as they can just hang that phone up, but when it hits 
voicemail, and it sits there for two minutes recording an empty message, 
and then emails it to the person it can be a bit annoying!

There are a couple of possible things that I realize could be causing 
it, the most major being that the phone wiring to the port that asterisk 
is plugged into is a bit dodgy and I think there is a fair amount of 
interference which I suspect could be annoying it a bit.

The other possible problem is that when someone hangs up, the tone that 
comes down the phone line to indicate that it has been hung up lasts for 
about 4 seconds, and then the line just goes silent - would this mean 
that the busy detect mechanism would not detect that it has been hung up?

Thanks in advance,
Alex Brett
alex.brett@loho.co.uk
+44 (0)870 744 2170
http://www.loho.co.uk/

X100P hangup detection works only sporadically in the US as
well.
Probably a bug in hardware and/or software.  Not sure.  It
just does not work for a lot of people.
WW
----- Original Message Follows -----
> Firstly, let me just say I am new to asterisk and if
> anything I've said  is covered in an FAQ or in previous
> posts I apologise but I have tried  searching and I've
> attempted a few of the things I found but they didn't 
> help.
> 
> Has anybody got any experience using an X100P on an NTL
> phone line in  the UK (I'm in an ex Cable & Wireless area
> if that makes any difference).
> 
> The problem I'm having (and judging by the number of
> references to it  I've found searching it is a common one)
> is getting * to detect when the  line has been hung up. 
> It doesn't matter if it comes through to a  person
> directly as they can just hang that phone up, but when it
> hits  voicemail, and it sits there for two minutes
> recording an empty message,  and then emails it to the
> person it can be a bit annoying!
> 
> There are a couple of possible things that I realize could
> be causing  it, the most major being that the phone wiring
> to the port that asterisk  is plugged into is a bit dodgy
> and I think there is a fair amount of  interference which
> I suspect could be annoying it a bit.
> 
> The other possible problem is that when someone hangs up,
> the tone that  comes down the phone line to indicate that
> it has been hung up lasts for  about 4 seconds, and then
> the line just goes silent - would this mean  that the busy
> detect mechanism would not detect that it has been hung
> up?
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Alex Brett
> alex.brett@loho.co.uk
> +44 (0)870 744 2170
> http://www.loho.co.uk/
> _______________________________________________
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Willy Wouters
ypOne Publishing

On Tue, 13 Apr 2004, Alex Brett wrote:
> Has anybody got any experience using an X100P on an NTL phone line in 
> the UK (I'm in an ex Cable & Wireless area if that makes any
difference).
> 
> The problem I'm having (and judging by the number of references to it 
> I've found searching it is a common one) is getting * to detect when
the
> line has been hung up.  It doesn't matter if it comes through to a 
> person directly as they can just hang that phone up, but when it hits 
> voicemail, and it sits there for two minutes recording an empty message, 
> and then emails it to the person it can be a bit annoying!
Hi Alex,

Indeed the call end termination doesn't work on an NTL line.  I'm not
so sure it works too well on other lines either.

I did some work a while back to add detection of the UK busy/hangup
signal on the line, but I never got it working well enough to depend
on it.  The problem is that it is a single frequency tone.  (The US
one is dual-tone).  Women's voices used to sometimes trigger my
detector - causing hangups.

The main practical issue is with voicemail, as you say.

My final solution was to switch to ISDN.

Steve

On Tue, 2004-04-13 at 02:19, Alex Brett wrote:
> Has anybody got any experience using an X100P on an NTL phone line in 
> the UK (I'm in an ex Cable & Wireless area if that makes any
difference).
> 
> The problem I'm having (and judging by the number of references to it 
> I've found searching it is a common one) is getting * to detect when
the
> line has been hung up.  It doesn't matter if it comes through to a 
> person directly as they can just hang that phone up, but when it hits 
> voicemail, and it sits there for two minutes recording an empty message, 
> and then emails it to the person it can be a bit annoying!
I can't comment as to whether this will work in the UK as the last phone
I had in the UK was Birmingham Cable around 12 years ago. But that said
we seem to have similar problems here in France, I seem to have overcome
it, someone else has used my settings and his seems to work and another
is going to configure his tonight. 

So these are our settings:-

In * Makefile
.
# Original busydetect routine
BUSYDETECT = #-DBUSYDETECT

# Improved busydetect routine, comment the previous one if you use this
one
BUSYDETECT+= -DBUSYDETECT_MARTIN
# Detect the busy signal looking only at tone lengths # For example if
you
have 3 beeps 100ms tone, 100ms silence separated by 500 ms of silence
BUSYDETECT+= #-DBUSYDETECT_TONEONLY
# Inforce the detection of busy singal (get rid of false hangups) #
Don't
use together with -DBUSYDETECT_TONEONLY
BUSYDETECT+= -DBUSYDETECT_COMPARE_TONE_AND_SILENCE

In zapata.conf

busydetect=yes
busycount=7

In voicemail.conf

maxmessage=180
minmessage=3
maxsilence=10
silencethreshold=128

In indications.conf I have only the details of France I've removed
everything else.

YMMV


-- 
Dave Cotton <dcotton@linuxautrement.com>

Stephen Davies wrote:

 >Hi Alex,
 >
 >Indeed the call end termination doesn't work on an NTL line.  I'm
not
 >so sure it works too well on other lines either.
 >
 >I did some work a while back to add detection of the UK busy/hangup
 >signal on the line, but I never got it working well enough to depend
 >on it.  The problem is that it is a single frequency tone.  (The US
 >one is dual-tone).  Women's voices used to sometimes trigger my
 >detector - causing hangups.
 >
 >The main practical issue is with voicemail, as you say.
 >
 >My final solution was to switch to ISDN.
 >
 >Steve

I would be interested in seeing this code, as I have found that the 
hangup signal I get lasts for an exact amount of time before the line 
goes silent, so if I time it precisely, I may be able to adapt the code 
to only trigger if the tone lasts greater than a certain amount but less 
than another amount, which should prevent it triggering on voices (as it 
is about 4 seconds and the likelihood of that tone coming from a female 
voice and lasting 4 seconds is slim).

Thanks,
Alex Brett
alex.brett@loho.co.uk
+44 (0)870 744 2170
http://www.loho.co.uk/