asterisk users - Jan 2006 - integration with Meridian/Norstar ATA2

I'm attempting to use an asterisk box with a Digium TDM01B as voicemail 
for an existing Meridian/Norstar PBX with an ATA-2 adapter.  We're 
having problems where hangup is not always (but sometimes) detected.  
It's not detected probably 70% of the time or more.  (The users transfer 
callers to an extension--caller then has to navigate a menu to get to 
the appropriate user).

After doing some searching the ATA-2 is not capable of providing 
disconnect supervision.  Since this is a temporary situation (we're 
doing some testing before switching completely to an Asterisk based 
system), is there something I can try to improve the percentage of calls 
that are disconnected?

I would use silence detection in voicemail.conf but wanted to know if 
there was some other method.

Thanks,

Darrick

-- 
Darrick Hartman
DJH Solutions, LLC
877.901.3113

Leo Ann Boon wrote:
> Darrick Hartman wrote:
>
>> I'm attempting to use an asterisk box with a Digium TDM01B as 
>> voicemail for an existing Meridian/Norstar PBX with an ATA-2 
>> adapter.  We're having problems where hangup is not always (but 
>> sometimes) detected.  It's not detected probably 70% of the time or
>> more.  (The users transfer callers to an extension--caller then has 
>> to navigate a menu to get to the appropriate user).
>>
>> After doing some searching the ATA-2 is not capable of providing 
>> disconnect supervision.  Since this is a temporary situation (we're
>> doing some testing before switching completely to an Asterisk based 
>> system), is there something I can try to improve the percentage of 
>> calls that are disconnected?
>
> Perhaps you should look at what's the hangup tone provided by ATA-2 to 
> your PBX. For loopstart lines from ATA, there really isn't any 
> disconnect supervision - so the only way is by playing a hangup tone 
> to the PBX or get your PBX to auto hangup if silence for >x seconds.
>
It's not that the PBX isn't hanging up, it's that when the outside 
caller hangs up, Asterisk is not letting go of the line.  The voicemail 
app is not getting a hangup signal (because the ATA-2 is not capable of 
providing one).  We also have no documentation on the devices.  The 
configuration was setup about 10 years ago or perhaps more.  This is old 
equipment.  For the last 5 years or so, we've used a voice modem on the 
ATA-2 line to do the voicemail.  The voice modem setup with VOCP/vgetty 
was unreliable and would often times disconnect the line because it only 
worked on silence detection.

I'll check in the morning what sort of tone is heard if an analog phone 
is connected to the ATA-2.

Darrick

-- 
Darrick Hartman
DJH Solutions, LLC

On Tuesday 03 January 2006 20:14, Darrick Hartman wrote:
> I'm attempting to use an asterisk box with a Digium TDM01B as voicemail
> for an existing Meridian/Norstar PBX with an ATA-2 adapter.  We're
> having problems where hangup is not always (but sometimes) detected.
> It's not detected probably 70% of the time or more.  (The users
transfer
> callers to an extension--caller then has to navigate a menu to get to
> the appropriate user).
One solution you could use is to simply set an AbsoluteTimeout() before 
hitting VoiceMail, so that after 60 seconds it drops the call with prejudice.  
60 seconds actually is quite a long time to store a message, and the odd time 
that it hangs up on a caller may be acceptable.

-A.