Calling Card problems creates problems for mobile users

[cwernstedt]

I have noticed several calling card related problems that are very annoying, and that I'd like to report:

• Calling directly to mailboxes via a calling card simply doesn't work. (It doesn't matter what the dial plan looks like.)
   
  
• When an extension has "Call Forward All" to external number, it will not work properly when called from a calling card in the following ways:
  

  
  

• If the called extension has UAs registered they will ring, which is wrong -- the call should be forwarded.
  
  
• If the called extension doesn't have UAs registered, there will just be silence with no notification to the user about what's happening. (Double wrong!)
  
  
  (In the latter case, the PBX log shows "Could not start call to extension 1141 because there is no registration or the extension is busy" .)

  
   
  

• Calling card doesn't work correctly with extensions that have a cell phone number attached. The cell phone will not ring.
   
  
• If calling an extension from a calling card, the caller will never wind up in the mailbox regardless of the called extension's mailbox time out settings.
  

Now, one might recommend using the new cell phone features in the auto attendant instead of calling in using a calling card. However this is not a satisfying solution for the following reasons:

1. If a prefix is necessary in the cell phone number as entered in the user's settings, CID matching will not work. (E.g. the the number entered is the settings is 550019174110101 in order to route the call correctly, but the cell phone presents itself as 0019174110101 when dialing in, resulting in a non-match.)
   
2. CID info is not always tansmitted correctly anyway. Its reliability depends a lot on which operator the phone is attached to. (For example, when I dial numbers in Europe from my U.S phones, the CID may often be suppressed.)
   
3. A mobile user may need to dial in from a different phone than the cell phone having the number that has been entered. (e.g the battery may be dead.)
   
4. Calling card functionality in cellphones (e.g some Ericsson phones) usually don't have provisions for navigating complex menus. Typically it is possible to send access code + the desired number + #, and that's it.
   
5. The need to navigate menus should be kept at a minimum since mobile users may be walking or driving a car while operating the phone.
   

 

With the above described problems, I would say that support for mobile users in pbxnsip is currently lacking in several essential areas.

 

 

Regards,

 

Christian W