Please forgive my lack of telephony knowledge but we are trying to find our way blindly through the dark and just need to know if we should head in the Asterisk direction. The problem I am trying to solve is this:
Objectives:
• Call comes in to an existing phone number (may be PSTN, VOIP, or cell)
• Forward those calls to an external application with a database of accepted phone numbers (white list)
• If the caller number is on the white list send it back to the original receiving phone
• If the caller is not on the list send to voicemail or forwarding number
Criteria:
• Must use receiving phone’s existing numbers (preferably whether the number is PSTN, VOIP, or cellular), can not port the user’s existing number to another provider
• Must not use simultaneous ring
• Must compare incoming calls to a white list
• Must route white listed numbers to original number
• Must route all other numbers to another number or voicemail
Is this even possible?
If so, can Asterisk solve this?
If not, can anything?
I sure hope this doesn’t come across as a stupid question, a thousand pardons for my ignorance.
CMoore
I think this is going to be the hard part, You want to use the customers original number but not port it in, then you want to be able to call the customer on their original number at their original carrier?
If you could assign a new number to your customer and have them hand out that number then this would be easy to do.
Oh I know, that is the hard part we keep running into. But porting isn’t an option, and neither is simultaneous ring (which could have solved it pretty well). Again, don’t know much telephony, but could there be a small inline switch that we could add to the line just before the phone to intercept and only ring the phone if it contains some packet info?
If you own the DIDs, then yes, it’s possible. I’d create a database table with the DIDs, where to send the call if it’s not on the whitelist, and where to send it if the line is in use. If you don’t own the DIDs, then I can’t think of a way to intercept them unless the phone is forwarding (transferring) the call to you first.
Thank you for your time mkozusnik and johnkiniston. I think I could benefit from a conversation with a paid consultant I just end up with too many questions. Please let me know if you recommend any.
