Can someone point me in the direction of instructions on how I allow my cell phone to get a dial tone from my home phone landline Asterisk? I want to dial my home number on my cell and get a dial tone from my Asterisk there in order to cut down on my cellular minutes (i.e exactly what Nerd Vittles described using Sprint’s “phone home” option and “Asterisk@Home,” but on a normal command line Asterisk.)
Many thanks,
Kevin
Hmmm… are you;
A: Trying to get the Asterisk system to call your cell phone (because you may get free incoming minutes) so that you may access your Asterisk system?
Or,
B: Trying to gain access to your home phone dial tone from your cellphone to be able to extend a call from your home phone line using your cell?
A: is easy. Look up any callback application. You’ll be able access your Asterisk system to check messages or any other system features you’re built into the system.
B: won’t work unless you have two phone lines (analog or VOIP or one of each) in your home Asterisk system. Once you extend the call from an Asterisk system with a single landine, it’s already in use, so you can’t use it to place a call with your cell.
If you added a second phone line to your home system, and then added a callback application (so that calls to your Asterisk system from your cell phone call you back immediately), add a DISA application, combine that with free incoming minutes, you might be able to do it.
The cost of a second phone line might be better spent on bumping up your cell minutes though.
Dumb, dumb, dumb…
I was after (B), and clearly should have thought this through a bit more. Simultaneous incoming and outgoing phone calls on one line is beyond even the capabilities of Verizon.
Many thanks,
Kevin
Oh, I dunno. Now that I’ve thought about it for a minute, maybe with Verizon 3 way calling?
Picture this…
You call your Asterisk box, and enter a phone destination. An AGI script or a carefully written macro takes over from there.
It hangs up the line, waits 3 seconds, dials your phone, waits for you to answer, then flashes the ZAP channel, and places the second call.
A second hookswitch flash will connect the two legs together. You’ll be in a three way conversation with yourself, your Asterisk box, and the person you’re trying to call.
If you set it up right, you could signal the Asterisk box to hangup on the second leg, and place another call. (Say, by pressing the # key three times, entering a new number, and pressing pound again.)
Not sure how that would affect your home phone bill. Like I said, it might still be cheaper to add more minutes to the cell.
But, you’re idea could be done.
When it comes to telecom, you’ll find that anything is possible. The only real question is; Is my solution practical?
In your case, the question becomes, is it cheaper to add three way calling and do three way conversations, or add a second line, or just buy more cell minutes?
In Virginia, 3 way calling is $3.85, or you may already have it as part of a residential calling plan. If your cell number is a toll free call from home, this idea becomes pretty affordable…
It might be practicable (heck, it might even be affordable), but doing something like that is beyond my current Asterisk capabilities.
What might be more interesting would be to let Asterisk talk to a ham radio transciever such that you could patch a call to your ham radio set…
Anyway, thanks for the insights.
Kevin
Very easily done. Check out the Nerd Vittles web site for the instrustions. With my Nextel phone I have unlimited incoming calls. So, I call my office and due to caller id it knows it is me calling and gives my my special menu. I press a code and hang up. It calls me back and gives me dialtone. I then call any number I want and wa-la, I have a free call!!! Very easy. Yes, you need to make sure you have the bandwidth on your connection because as far as Asterisk is concerned, you have two phone calls going on at once.