This is my first time here in the forums, but I’m not a total novice when it comes to phone systems. I’ve worked with AllWorx, my current job has me working with ShoreTel, and I got my feet wet back in the earliest days of Asterisk (2005).
Here’s my scenario and question. I have a small computer repair business and at the moment, currently I have just one (1) POTS line to keep costs low from our local provider (fiber & POTS are packaged together). Is it possible to have an incoming call on my POTS line be transferred over (or even forwarded) to my Google Voice or Skype numbers? I don’t have a SIP trunk, although would not be opposed to getting one if needed. But I was wondering if there was any feature within Asterisk that would forward or transfer calls to Google Voice or Skype without the need for a SIP trunk or a second POTS line?
This would go along ways to helping me receive calls while I’m on the road most of the day. This would be my optimal solution, although I think other workarounds could be doable.
Within Asterisk you can’t forward a call elsewhere without having a connection to that - in the case of the PSTN you would need a trunk to the PSTN. Outside of Asterisk you could probably just call forward it.
Thanks for your input. I had a feeling that might have been the case, but wasn’t sure if there was some feature I didn’t know about that would use the internet (apart from a SIP trunk/channel) to pass a call over to Google Voice or Skype.
As I mentioned above, I have one fiber POTS line that is bundled with the office internet so I can’t disconnect the phone and only have internet. My goal is to have better call handling for my home office since I’m on the road almost during all business hours. I’d like to have an auto-attendant route calls to my cell, Skype, G. Voice, Hangouts, etc without exposing that private info. Also being that I run this business from home, having features to disable ringing of phones after hours, weekends, and holidays is a must.
Google voice does this to a pretty good degree on it’s own, but I have to have a Google Voice number and give that out. Because my ISP requires land line phone service with internet, and that’s a number customers have used for years, I really have to work around using that as my main trunk line.
Any input is greatly appreciated on what might be the best solution for me.
Bearing in mind, of course, that the in-bound call on your landline would still be active and tie up the connection. It’s not like it’d be able to ‘hand it off’ to the GV trunk. The only way you’d be able to do that would be to use your landline service ability to call forward. Forward the calls when necessary, disable it when not. That’d still tie up the one in-bound connection on it, but would probably still allow calling out on. Which wouldn’t be useful if you’re not there, of course.