Re: [Asterisk-Users] 911/Emergency calls + Caller ID
You risk hanging up on your other 911 callers... but everything is always a tradeoff. In my experience, the 911 dispatcher can (does) pin the call, so that even though the remote side hangs up, the line is not available for use again until the dispatcher releases it. I'd expect this to mean that the proposed hangup would end up with the 911 operator transferred from caller-caller-caller if asterisk were configured to re-use a line for a new outbound 911 call... chris. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] 911/Emergency calls + Caller ID
That would be the case if calls are dropped at random to clear the way for 911 calls. With some form of access control (NCOS, Calling Search Space/Partitions, priority levels) you would be able to drop the least important calls. BTW, how are trunk restrictions managed right now? How can I specify which phones/extensions can make local, long distance or international calls? Can this be controlled by a time-of-day schedule, to change restrictions after regular business hours (cleaning crew calling LD)? Dylan. Chris Witte wrote: You risk hanging up on your other 911 callers... but everything is always a tradeoff. In my experience, the 911 dispatcher can (does) pin the call, so that even though the remote side hangs up, the line is not available for use again until the dispatcher releases it. I'd expect this to mean that the proposed hangup would end up with the 911 operator transferred from caller-caller-caller if asterisk were configured to re-use a line for a new outbound 911 call... chris. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] 911/Emergency calls + Caller ID
make a context for l/d dialing and include it for the phones / times of day, when it is actually supposed to be used, not otherwise. At 09:52 AM 6/24/2003 -0600, you wrote: That would be the case if calls are dropped at random to clear the way for 911 calls. With some form of access control (NCOS, Calling Search Space/Partitions, priority levels) you would be able to drop the least important calls. BTW, how are trunk restrictions managed right now? How can I specify which phones/extensions can make local, long distance or international calls? Can this be controlled by a time-of-day schedule, to change restrictions after regular business hours (cleaning crew calling LD)? Dylan. Chris Witte wrote: You risk hanging up on your other 911 callers... but everything is always a tradeoff. In my experience, the 911 dispatcher can (does) pin the call, so that even though the remote side hangs up, the line is not available for use again until the dispatcher releases it. I'd expect this to mean that the proposed hangup would end up with the 911 operator transferred from caller-caller-caller if asterisk were configured to re-use a line for a new outbound 911 call... chris. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
[Asterisk-Users] 911/Emergency calls + Caller ID
Problem: 911 calls placed through Asterisk are associated with the physical location of where the CO trunks terminate. This is not really a problem when all extensions are located in the same building, but when Asterisk is used in a campus-like or otherwise networked environment, it can get messy. A common solution is to install a few analog lines at each location, for emergency calls only. But by making clever use of Caller ID (and adding a 'location' field to extensions.conf), it should be possible to properly identify the location of the caller: exten = 1001,1,John Doe,1223 Bell Ave. Room 51 For this to work, you would have to be able to apply rules to the 911 context in a dial plan, to replace the *name* portion with the *location* portion. A similar rule could be defined to drop other calls if 911 is dialed and all lines are busy (e.g. drop the lobby phone but not the front desk, or drop local vs. long distance, caller ID calls vs. non-identified calls, etc.). Getting lengthy, better stop. Dylan. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] 911/Emergency calls + Caller ID
I'm not sure I can parse your examples correctly. I'm not being snide, but do you use Asterisk on a regular basis? Do you understand how applications work, and how call handoff is done between Asterisk servers? Your example doesn't seem to make sense, no matter how I think about it. Of course, the problem with 911 is the problem of location of the originating handset. That much has been clear for years. Getting that information to the 911 call center is the problem; it's pretty much worthless info even if you have it inside the PBX - you could just as easily have an external database that maps extensions to locations - why bother with the PBX if there is no in-band signalling to the PSAP? This makes me think a bit about some other 911 ideas I had a while back, using lat/lon/altitude. Can ADSI tones be transmitted through any phone call on the PSTN? It might be interesting for PBX systems to pass across the lat/lon/altitude of callers via ADSI in-band. This will never work, of course, since nobody would trust the transmitters. The 911 question almost instantly spins into a political issue, and not a technical issue, since there are a number of clever ways to solve the problem but not a number of clever ways to bang solutions into people's heads. Bumping calls to clear a path for 911 is possible within Asterisk already - see the SoftHangup application. JT Problem: 911 calls placed through Asterisk are associated with the physical location of where the CO trunks terminate. This is not really a problem when all extensions are located in the same building, but when Asterisk is used in a campus-like or otherwise networked environment, it can get messy. A common solution is to install a few analog lines at each location, for emergency calls only. But by making clever use of Caller ID (and adding a 'location' field to extensions.conf), it should be possible to properly identify the location of the caller: exten = 1001,1,John Doe,1223 Bell Ave. Room 51 For this to work, you would have to be able to apply rules to the 911 context in a dial plan, to replace the *name* portion with the *location* portion. A similar rule could be defined to drop other calls if 911 is dialed and all lines are busy (e.g. drop the lobby phone but not the front desk, or drop local vs. long distance, caller ID calls vs. non-identified calls, etc.). Getting lengthy, better stop. Dylan. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] 911/Emergency calls + Caller ID
Now that I reed it back, I can barely make sense of it myself! Anyway, I was just thinking out loud, the example wasn't meant to be parsed. Asterisk would need some lower level changes to parse the extra field holding the location information, and to apply the routing rules to substitute the Caller ID name for the location. I was hoping this would be thought provoking for somebody smarter than me :) Bumping calls to clear a path for 911 is possible within Asterisk already - see the SoftHangup application. That sounds good, but what can trigger the SoftHangup app to drop other calls automatically when 911 is dialed? Thanks, Dylan. John Todd wrote: I'm not sure I can parse your examples correctly. I'm not being snide, but do you use Asterisk on a regular basis? Do you understand how applications work, and how call handoff is done between Asterisk servers? Your example doesn't seem to make sense, no matter how I think about it. Of course, the problem with 911 is the problem of location of the originating handset. That much has been clear for years. Getting that information to the 911 call center is the problem; it's pretty much worthless info even if you have it inside the PBX - you could just as easily have an external database that maps extensions to locations - why bother with the PBX if there is no in-band signalling to the PSAP? This makes me think a bit about some other 911 ideas I had a while back, using lat/lon/altitude. Can ADSI tones be transmitted through any phone call on the PSTN? It might be interesting for PBX systems to pass across the lat/lon/altitude of callers via ADSI in-band. This will never work, of course, since nobody would trust the transmitters. The 911 question almost instantly spins into a political issue, and not a technical issue, since there are a number of clever ways to solve the problem but not a number of clever ways to bang solutions into people's heads. Bumping calls to clear a path for 911 is possible within Asterisk already - see the SoftHangup application. JT Problem: 911 calls placed through Asterisk are associated with the physical location of where the CO trunks terminate. This is not really a problem when all extensions are located in the same building, but when Asterisk is used in a campus-like or otherwise networked environment, it can get messy. A common solution is to install a few analog lines at each location, for emergency calls only. But by making clever use of Caller ID (and adding a 'location' field to extensions.conf), it should be possible to properly identify the location of the caller: exten = 1001,1,John Doe,1223 Bell Ave. Room 51 For this to work, you would have to be able to apply rules to the 911 context in a dial plan, to replace the *name* portion with the *location* portion. A similar rule could be defined to drop other calls if 911 is dialed and all lines are busy (e.g. drop the lobby phone but not the front desk, or drop local vs. long distance, caller ID calls vs. non-identified calls, etc.). Getting lengthy, better stop. Dylan. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] 911/Emergency calls + Caller ID
Dylan VanHerpen wrote: Now that I reed it back, I can barely make sense of it myself! Anyway, I was just thinking out loud, the example wasn't meant to be parsed. Asterisk would need some lower level changes to parse the extra field holding the location information, and to apply the routing rules to substitute the Caller ID name for the location. I was hoping this would be thought provoking for somebody smarter than me :) Bumping calls to clear a path for 911 is possible within Asterisk already - see the SoftHangup application. That sounds good, but what can trigger the SoftHangup app to drop other calls automatically when 911 is dialed? Thanks, Dylan. John Todd wrote: I'm not sure I can parse your examples correctly. I'm not being snide, but do you use Asterisk on a regular basis? Do you understand how applications work, and how call handoff is done between Asterisk servers? Your example doesn't seem to make sense, no matter how I think about it. Of course, the problem with 911 is the problem of location of the originating handset. That much has been clear for years. Getting that information to the 911 call center is the problem; it's pretty much worthless info even if you have it inside the PBX - you could just as easily have an external database that maps extensions to locations - why bother with the PBX if there is no in-band signalling to the PSAP? This makes me think a bit about some other 911 ideas I had a while back, using lat/lon/altitude. Can ADSI tones be transmitted through any phone call on the PSTN? It might be interesting for PBX systems to pass across the lat/lon/altitude of callers via ADSI in-band. This will never work, of course, since nobody would trust the transmitters. The 911 question almost instantly spins into a political issue, and not a technical issue, since there are a number of clever ways to solve the problem but not a number of clever ways to bang solutions into people's heads. Bumping calls to clear a path for 911 is possible within Asterisk already - see the SoftHangup application. JT Problem: 911 calls placed through Asterisk are associated with the physical location of where the CO trunks terminate. This is not really a problem when all extensions are located in the same building, but when Asterisk is used in a campus-like or otherwise networked environment, it can get messy. A common solution is to install a few analog lines at each location, for emergency calls only. But by making clever use of Caller ID (and adding a 'location' field to extensions.conf), it should be possible to properly identify the location of the caller: exten = 1001,1,John Doe,1223 Bell Ave. Room 51 For this to work, you would have to be able to apply rules to the 911 context in a dial plan, to replace the *name* portion with the *location* portion. A similar rule could be defined to drop other calls if 911 is dialed and all lines are busy (e.g. drop the lobby phone but not the front desk, or drop local vs. long distance, caller ID calls vs. non-identified calls, etc.). Getting lengthy, better stop. Dylan. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] 911/Emergency calls + Caller ID
And now that I *read* it back again, you can tell that English is not my native language either Dylan VanHerpen wrote: Now that I reed it back, I can barely make sense of it myself! Anyway, I was just thinking out loud, the example wasn't meant to be parsed. Asterisk would need some lower level changes to parse the extra field holding the location information, and to apply the routing rules to substitute the Caller ID name for the location. I was hoping this would be thought provoking for somebody smarter than me :) Bumping calls to clear a path for 911 is possible within Asterisk already - see the SoftHangup application. That sounds good, but what can trigger the SoftHangup app to drop other calls automatically when 911 is dialed? Thanks, Dylan. John Todd wrote: I'm not sure I can parse your examples correctly. I'm not being snide, but do you use Asterisk on a regular basis? Do you understand how applications work, and how call handoff is done between Asterisk servers? Your example doesn't seem to make sense, no matter how I think about it. Of course, the problem with 911 is the problem of location of the originating handset. That much has been clear for years. Getting that information to the 911 call center is the problem; it's pretty much worthless info even if you have it inside the PBX - you could just as easily have an external database that maps extensions to locations - why bother with the PBX if there is no in-band signalling to the PSAP? This makes me think a bit about some other 911 ideas I had a while back, using lat/lon/altitude. Can ADSI tones be transmitted through any phone call on the PSTN? It might be interesting for PBX systems to pass across the lat/lon/altitude of callers via ADSI in-band. This will never work, of course, since nobody would trust the transmitters. The 911 question almost instantly spins into a political issue, and not a technical issue, since there are a number of clever ways to solve the problem but not a number of clever ways to bang solutions into people's heads. Bumping calls to clear a path for 911 is possible within Asterisk already - see the SoftHangup application. JT Problem: 911 calls placed through Asterisk are associated with the physical location of where the CO trunks terminate. This is not really a problem when all extensions are located in the same building, but when Asterisk is used in a campus-like or otherwise networked environment, it can get messy. A common solution is to install a few analog lines at each location, for emergency calls only. But by making clever use of Caller ID (and adding a 'location' field to extensions.conf), it should be possible to properly identify the location of the caller: exten = 1001,1,John Doe,1223 Bell Ave. Room 51 For this to work, you would have to be able to apply rules to the 911 context in a dial plan, to replace the *name* portion with the *location* portion. A similar rule could be defined to drop other calls if 911 is dialed and all lines are busy (e.g. drop the lobby phone but not the front desk, or drop local vs. long distance, caller ID calls vs. non-identified calls, etc.). Getting lengthy, better stop. Dylan. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] 911/Emergency calls + Caller ID
Problem: 911 calls placed through Asterisk are associated with the physical location of where the CO trunks terminate. This is not really a problem when all extensions are located in the same building, but when Asterisk is used in a campus-like or otherwise networked environment, it can get messy. A common solution is to install a few analog lines at each location, for emergency calls only. But by making clever use of Caller ID (and adding a 'location' field to extensions.conf), it should be possible to properly identify the location of the caller: exten = 1001,1,John Doe,1223 Bell Ave. Room 51 For this to work, you would have to be able to apply rules to the 911 context in a dial plan, to replace the *name* portion with the *location* portion. A similar rule could be defined to drop other calls if 911 is dialed and all lines are busy (e.g. drop the lobby phone but not the front desk, or drop local vs. long distance, caller ID calls vs. non-identified calls, etc.). Getting lengthy, better stop. Dylan. This is all quite interesting to me, as I have been somewhat concerned about it, though have never quite bumped into it directly yet. It would be 'nice' to be able to forcibly hangup on some rule based channel if a certain dial 'priority' is set. Perhaps you could do something like this: exten = 911,1,SetVar(priority,911) exten = 911,2,Dial,Zap/g2:911 (Ignore the likely invalid syntax/parameters, but you should get the right idea) Then in another config file: [911] On,Busy,Drop,Zap/1 On,Busy,Drop,Zap/g2 On,Busy,Drop,any So, we might initially try hanging up on Zap/1, but for some reason, we can't release the channel, so we now try each line in Zap/g2 successively, if we still can't get a channel to become available, then try any other line, (heck, drop all of them and pickup the first available). You could also use this so that just before your boss's dialout, it sets the priority to 666, the first thing it does is try to disconnect the line your extension is using (because you only ever talk to your friend and spend all day chatting instead of working, but don't want your boss to realise you were on the phone again...) Yes, it is possible to use SoftHangup to do this, it can be done as an AGI, but I think the importance of this is such that the level of peer review and correctness is rather high! Imagine you get it wrong and all it does is hang up on the caller when they dial 911. Also, it isn't very easy to 'test' either, as the staff at the 911 call centre won't appreciate your testing, and at least in Australia, it is some sort of criminal?/illegal offence to call emergency for non-emergency situations. PS, also keep in mind that different countries use different codes for emergency. Personally, when setting up these codes, I have tried to accomodate for all the ones I know of: 911 - North America 000 - Australia 112 - Emergency from Mobile Phones in Australia I'm not sure what the number is in other countries, but perhaps we should allow this to be somewhat flexible enough that it can be used anywhere. Just some additional lengthy comments to add to the list :) Regards, Adam ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] 911/Emergency calls + Caller ID
Also, it isn't very easy to 'test' either, as the staff at the 911 call centre won't appreciate your testing, and at least in Australia, it is some sort of criminal?/illegal offence to call emergency for non-emergency situations. I had much the same thoughts. Currently my 911 code is just commented out for that very reason - I don't want to get in trouble for accidentally making 911 calls to test it. Should I rely on that code untested for when it is really needed most ? What are other people doing ? I have a set of extensions I call line seize that are supposed to act like the line buttons on a conventional business phone to pickup a specific line and get a dial tone (I was going to add them to adsi to make the illusion even more complete), maybe I will modify those to include a softhangup when the line is busy if the user hits * or something. In a real emergency though you would want this as simple as possible, but foolproof if you code it wrong. PS, also keep in mind that different countries use different codes for emergency. Personally, when setting up these codes, I have tried to accomodate for all the ones I know of: 911 - North America 000 - Australia 112 - Emergency from Mobile Phones in Australia I'm not sure what the number is in other countries, but perhaps we should allow this to be somewhat flexible enough that it can be used anywhere. Just some additional lengthy comments to add to the list :) Regards, Adam ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] 911/Emergency calls + Caller ID
Jon Pounder wrote: I had much the same thoughts. Currently my 911 code is just commented out for that very reason - I don't want to get in trouble for accidentally making 911 calls to test it. Should I rely on that code untested for when it is really needed most ? What are other people doing ? Cisco have implemented a solution for this, does anyone know how they do it in Call Manager? -- Regards, David Hooton Senior Partner Platform Hosting www.platformhosting.com ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] 911/Emergency calls + Caller ID
Also, it isn't very easy to 'test' either, as the staff at the 911 call centre won't appreciate your testing, and at least in Australia, it is some sort of criminal?/illegal offence to call emergency for non-emergency situations. Well, for testing purposes 911 could be replaced with any other number. You can also setup an alias for '11', so that regardless if people dial 911 (instead of 9,911), they'll get thru. Dylan. Adam Goryachev wrote: Problem: 911 calls placed through Asterisk are associated with the physical location of where the CO trunks terminate. This is not really a problem when all extensions are located in the same building, but when Asterisk is used in a campus-like or otherwise networked environment, it can get messy. A common solution is to install a few analog lines at each location, for emergency calls only. But by making clever use of Caller ID (and adding a 'location' field to extensions.conf), it should be possible to properly identify the location of the caller: exten = 1001,1,John Doe,1223 Bell Ave. Room 51 For this to work, you would have to be able to apply rules to the 911 context in a dial plan, to replace the *name* portion with the *location* portion. A similar rule could be defined to drop other calls if 911 is dialed and all lines are busy (e.g. drop the lobby phone but not the front desk, or drop local vs. long distance, caller ID calls vs. non-identified calls, etc.). Getting lengthy, better stop. Dylan. This is all quite interesting to me, as I have been somewhat concerned about it, though have never quite bumped into it directly yet. It would be 'nice' to be able to forcibly hangup on some rule based channel if a certain dial 'priority' is set. Perhaps you could do something like this: exten = 911,1,SetVar(priority,911) exten = 911,2,Dial,Zap/g2:911 (Ignore the likely invalid syntax/parameters, but you should get the right idea) Then in another config file: [911] On,Busy,Drop,Zap/1 On,Busy,Drop,Zap/g2 On,Busy,Drop,any So, we might initially try hanging up on Zap/1, but for some reason, we can't release the channel, so we now try each line in Zap/g2 successively, if we still can't get a channel to become available, then try any other line, (heck, drop all of them and pickup the first available). You could also use this so that just before your boss's dialout, it sets the priority to 666, the first thing it does is try to disconnect the line your extension is using (because you only ever talk to your friend and spend all day chatting instead of working, but don't want your boss to realise you were on the phone again...) Yes, it is possible to use SoftHangup to do this, it can be done as an AGI, but I think the importance of this is such that the level of peer review and correctness is rather high! Imagine you get it wrong and all it does is hang up on the caller when they dial 911. Also, it isn't very easy to 'test' either, as the staff at the 911 call centre won't appreciate your testing, and at least in Australia, it is some sort of criminal?/illegal offence to call emergency for non-emergency situations. PS, also keep in mind that different countries use different codes for emergency. Personally, when setting up these codes, I have tried to accomodate for all the ones I know of: 911 - North America 000 - Australia 112 - Emergency from Mobile Phones in Australia I'm not sure what the number is in other countries, but perhaps we should allow this to be somewhat flexible enough that it can be used anywhere. Just some additional lengthy comments to add to the list :) Regards, Adam ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] 911/Emergency calls + Caller ID
Also, it isn't very easy to 'test' either, as the staff at the 911 call centre won't appreciate your testing, and at least in Australia, it is some sort of criminal?/illegal offence to call emergency for non-emergency situations. I had much the same thoughts. Currently my 911 code is just commented out for that very reason - I don't want to get in trouble for accidentally making 911 calls to test it. Should I rely on that code untested for when it is really needed most ? What are other people doing ? In my experience, most 911 operators will say thank you, hang up, and go about their business if you tell them as soon as they answer the phone that This is a telephone system test call to ensure 911 operation. Most of all, don't hang up on them when they answer or you'll have a patrol car sitting at your place soon after. As long as you don't call them every 10 minutes, it shouldn't be a problem. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] 911/Emergency calls + Caller ID
Bumping calls to clear a path for 911 is possible within Asterisk already - see the SoftHangup application. That sounds good, but what can trigger the SoftHangup app to drop other calls automatically when 911 is dialed? A short AGI script, perhaps? It probably would not even require a short AGI. Define a group of Zap lines as your emergency lines. Increment a counter every time a line in that group is used for an outbound/inbound call, and decrement when the line is released (hung up.) If a 911 call is placed, and counter=(max lines in group) then run the SoftHangup and hangup the last three or four lines in the group before placing the 911 call. It is hopefully the case that your system sees 911 calls infrequently enough that a few dropped calls will not be overly burdensome. A sub-counter needs to be kept in order to prevent an existing 911 call from being SoftHangup'ed. It is the case that 911 calls come in clusters from office environments, where two or three people may call about the same issue at the same time, and it would be bad form to hang up 911 caller #1 in order to clear the line for 911 caller #2. You simply have to judge how many lines are appropriate For simplicity's sake, you may just decide that you should hang up Zap/1-21, Zap/1-22, Zap/1-23 anytime you see a 911 call being placed. You risk hanging up on your other 911 callers... but everything is always a tradeoff. JT ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
