asterisk users - Jul 2009 - Looking for wisdom - One Asterisk system - Multi-incoming trunks

I'm pretty new to this whole Asterisk system & VoIP thing, but being a 
programmer by trade the complexity didn't scare me off (at least not yet)...

I have setup an Asterisk system for my home & home office.  My wife & I 
run two separate businesses from home, and we have a general family home 
phone line as well.  The cost of all these lines with analog carriers 
was getting ridiculous, so I'm moving over to a SIP carrier.  I created 
one account for a single phone number with a SIP carrier (BroadVoice) 
and have it working well with my Asterisk system and one SIP phone here 
as a test.  I have IPCop as my Firewall/IDS system and all the SIP/NAT 
routing stuff is working fine (now).

I started the process today to get our other phone numbers moved over to 
BroadVoice.  I checked with them regarding how this is setup and they 
said that what I was doing was ok, but I thought getting some 'peer 
review' on this wouldn't be such a bad idea so I welcome any comments, 
etc. on this.

My approach is to have one trunk provided by the SIP provider.  All 
numbers are allocated to that trunk (BroadVoice let me do that when I 
setup the number transfer).  Asterisk receives an incoming call on that 
trunk and determines the calling number that it was requesting (not sure 
  how to get this, but Broadvoice assured me I could).  Anyway after 
determining what the call was destined for, I then route the call to the 
  appropriate context in the extensions to handle it.

I'm fine with setting up all the logic, flow, etc. for the calls.

But here's where I'm not sure what to do.  I'm getting 4 line 
Grandstream phones for my office and my wife's office.  And an ATA 
adapter for the general home line.  The home line will always call out 
using the home phone number.  The office numbers, however, should change 
their caller ID and caller name based on which extension is pressed on 
the phone for the outgoing call.  I can see how to do this with the 
Grandstream SIP phones, and have this working ok for my test phone line.

Broadvoice, however, won't let me change the outgoing caller ID. 
Apparently they have to do this on a trunk by trunk basis.  So if I want 
to have an outgoing call go through line 1 (let's say its ACME Inc), I 
want it to show 'XXX-XXX-XXXX Acme Inc' for the Caller ID.  But if the 
call is being sent through line 2 (let's say its SMITH PROPERTY) I want 
it to show 'YYY-YYY-YYYY Smith Property' for the Caller ID.  It looks 
like in order to do that, I need to purchase separate trunks for each of 
the outgoing lines.

Does this sound right?  Should I have purchased all separate trunks up 
front and then have the phone number transfer associated with the trunk 
for it?  Or is this only something that will affect outgoing calls, so 
its not a big deal?  And what about when the line is busy?  How is that 
handled?  I was on the phone yesterday when another call came in, and it 
came in, jumped to a different extension and then eventually went to 
voice mail as I didn't answer it.  Will my plan to use one trunk for all 
incoming lines make sense here, or am I likely to get all of this mixed 
up with calls coming in for one business and being routed to the wrong 
place?

Any suggestions, thoughts or critique would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you wise Asterisk gurus!

Myles
-- 
======================Myles Wakeham
Director of Engineering
Tech Solutions USA, Inc.
Scottsdale, Arizona  USA
http://www.techsolusa.com
Phone +1-480-451-7440

On Wed, 29 Jul 2009, Myles Wakeham wrote:
> I'm pretty new to this whole Asterisk system & VoIP thing, but
being a
> programmer by trade the complexity didn't scare me off (at least not
yet)...
>
> I have setup an Asterisk system for my home & home office.  My wife
& I
> run two separate businesses from home, and we have a general family home
> phone line as well.  The cost of all these lines with analog carriers
> was getting ridiculous, so I'm moving over to a SIP carrier.  I created
> one account for a single phone number with a SIP carrier (BroadVoice)
> and have it working well with my Asterisk system and one SIP phone here
> as a test.  I have IPCop as my Firewall/IDS system and all the SIP/NAT
> routing stuff is working fine (now).
>
> I started the process today to get our other phone numbers moved over to
> BroadVoice.  I checked with them regarding how this is setup and they
> said that what I was doing was ok, but I thought getting some 'peer
> review' on this wouldn't be such a bad idea so I welcome any
comments,
> etc. on this.
>
> My approach is to have one trunk provided by the SIP provider.  All
> numbers are allocated to that trunk (BroadVoice let me do that when I
> setup the number transfer).  Asterisk receives an incoming call on that
> trunk and determines the calling number that it was requesting (not sure
>  how to get this, but Broadvoice assured me I could).  Anyway after
> determining what the call was destined for, I then route the call to the
>  appropriate context in the extensions to handle it.
>
> I'm fine with setting up all the logic, flow, etc. for the calls.
>
> But here's where I'm not sure what to do.  I'm getting 4 line
> Grandstream phones for my office and my wife's office.  And an ATA
> adapter for the general home line.  The home line will always call out
> using the home phone number.  The office numbers, however, should change
> their caller ID and caller name based on which extension is pressed on
> the phone for the outgoing call.  I can see how to do this with the
> Grandstream SIP phones, and have this working ok for my test phone line.
>
> Broadvoice, however, won't let me change the outgoing caller ID.
> Apparently they have to do this on a trunk by trunk basis.  So if I want
> to have an outgoing call go through line 1 (let's say its ACME Inc), I
> want it to show 'XXX-XXX-XXXX Acme Inc' for the Caller ID.  But if
the
> call is being sent through line 2 (let's say its SMITH PROPERTY) I want
> it to show 'YYY-YYY-YYYY Smith Property' for the Caller ID.  It
looks
> like in order to do that, I need to purchase separate trunks for each of
> the outgoing lines.
>
> Does this sound right?  Should I have purchased all separate trunks up
> front and then have the phone number transfer associated with the trunk
> for it?  Or is this only something that will affect outgoing calls, so
> its not a big deal?  And what about when the line is busy?  How is that
> handled?  I was on the phone yesterday when another call came in, and it
> came in, jumped to a different extension and then eventually went to
> voice mail as I didn't answer it.  Will my plan to use one trunk for
all
> incoming lines make sense here, or am I likely to get all of this mixed
> up with calls coming in for one business and being routed to the wrong
> place?
>
> Any suggestions, thoughts or critique would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thank you wise Asterisk gurus!
>
> Myles
Hi Myles,

You don't have to send the traffic back to broadvoice for outbound if you 
don't want or need to.  Perhaps you can send the home traffic to 
Broadvoice and pick another carrier to send your other outbound traffic 
to, perhaps one that won't be so picky about your outbound CID.

j

On Wed, 29 Jul 2009, Myles Wakeham wrote:
> I have setup an Asterisk system for my home & home office.
[snip]
> The cost of all these lines with analog carriers was getting ridiculous, 
> so I'm moving over to a SIP carrier.  I created one account for a
single
> phone number with a SIP carrier (BroadVoice)
[snip]

I've never used BroadVoice, so I have nothing good or bad to say about 
them. I've used Vitelity.net for several years and am pleased with them.

I have a "nominal monthly fee, pay per minute" account. They get $1.49
a
month for a DID and $0.0144 per minute. You'd have to use about 2,600 
minutes (about 44 hours) before it would cost as much as a $40 per month 
"analog." They have an "unlimited" inbound for $7.95 a
month.
> I started the process today to get our other phone numbers moved over to 
> BroadVoice.
[snip]

Vitelity.net charges $18 per number ported. I've never done this.
> My approach is to have one trunk provided by the SIP provider.  All 
> numbers are allocated to that trunk (BroadVoice let me do that when I 
> setup the number transfer).  Asterisk receives an incoming call on that 
> trunk and determines the calling number that it was requesting (not sure 
> how to get this, but Broadvoice assured me I could).  Anyway after 
> determining what the call was destined for, I then route the call to the 
> appropriate context in the extensions to handle it.
The calls should be delivered with the DID (aka DNIS, DDI, etc). Usually 
you pick this up as the ${EXTEN} in your dialplan and go from there.

[snip]
> Broadvoice, however, won't let me change the outgoing caller ID. 
> Apparently they have to do this on a trunk by trunk basis.  So if I want 
> to have an outgoing call go through line 1 (let's say its ACME Inc), I 
> want it to show 'XXX-XXX-XXXX Acme Inc' for the Caller ID.
[snip]

Being able to specify the caller ID number depends on the carrier. 
Vitelity.net does. Specifying the caller ID name is not going to work. The 
way it works (from 40,000 feet) is that the name is not passed onto the 
"real" telephone system. The carrier for the dialed number looks up
the
number in a database and presents that to the dialed number. If you dial 
another VOIP account (sip:john-smith at example.com) your caller ID name 
should be passed.
> Does this sound right?  Should I have purchased all separate trunks up 
> front and then have the phone number transfer associated with the trunk 
> for it?  Or is this only something that will affect outgoing calls, so 
> its not a big deal?  And what about when the line is busy?  How is that 
> handled?  I was on the phone yesterday when another call came in, and it 
> came in, jumped to a different extension and then eventually went to 
> voice mail as I didn't answer it.  Will my plan to use one trunk for
all
> incoming lines make sense here, or am I likely to get all of this mixed 
> up with calls coming in for one business and being routed to the wrong 
> place?
I'm more comfortable with the word "account" than
"trunk." You can have
multiple DIDs numbers associated with the same account. Some providers 
make you specify (via their web site) where you want the calls to go. Some 
make you configure your Asterisk server so it "registers" with their 
server. I prefer registration because it let's me change things around 
easier.

-- 
Thanks in advance,
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Edwards       sedwards at sedwards.com      Voice: +1-760-468-3867 PST
Newline                                              Fax: +1-760-731-3000

Jeff LaCoursiere wrote:

 >You don't have to send the traffic back to broadvoice for outbound if 
 >you
 >don't want or need to.  Perhaps you can send the home traffic to
 >Broadvoice and pick another carrier to send your other outbound traffic
 >to, perhaps one that won't be so picky about your outbound CID.

Thank you for this.  Yes, I wasn't thinking that way at all.  I suspect 
that I need to find a carrier that will let me have better control over 
CID than BroadVoice.

Do you have any suggestions?  I'm in Phoenix, Arizona so one that has 
decent network speed near us would be best.

Myles

-- 
======================Myles Wakeham
Director of Engineering
Tech Solutions USA, Inc.
Scottsdale, Arizona  USA
http://www.techsolusa.com
Phone +1-480-451-7440

Lyle wrote:
 >I had this issue with Teliax. Basically with SIP, Teliax could not (or
 >the protocol won't let you) set your outbound caller ID via Asterisk.
 >Caller ID is set on a per account basis with Teliax when using SIP(IAX
 >was not working well for me with Teliax). So I have two outbound pay
>per
 >minute accounts with them. One for our home use and one for my
>business.
 >I use 51 prefix for home outbound calls and 52 prefix for business
 >outbound calls. Then my dialplan selects the proper account at Teliax
 >and you get the proper caller id set.

Yes, this is the same behavior I'm seeing with Broadvoice.  What seems 
to make it even worse for this is that when callers receive my outgoing 
call, its showing the correct CID for the outgoing line, but the Name 
that is showing is always 'BroadVoice'.  I asked them to have this 
changed to my company name, but it doesn't seem to have had any affect. 
  I suspect that there is some master database somewhere that recipient 
phones lookup based on the number to get the name?  If so, its not 
correctly identifying our company name on phones so I'm looking for 
alternative outbound carriers for this.  The inbound, however, works 
well.  I'm sure its not the least expensive option out there but so far 
its been pretty good.

Myles

-- 
======================Myles Wakeham
Director of Engineering
Tech Solutions USA, Inc.
Scottsdale, Arizona  USA
http://www.techsolusa.com
Phone +1-480-451-7440