Want Queues To Ignore Mobile Operators Voice Mails And Continue Ringing…?

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Asterisk Users 7 Comments

Hi All,

Lets say I want to setup a queue that will handle inbound calls to dynamically added agents that are all mobile numbers. Now when I do this setup it works, it loads the agents dynamically and if the mobile phone is on and have reception it works. But when the phone is for arguments sake off or dont have reception it goes to voice mail for that mobile phone.

I don’t want this to happen…:) I would like for the queue to continue ringing until there is a time out specified which then takes the caller out of the queue and to voice mail which I then intend to mail somewhere.

I guess my question is can this be done in Asterisk? Can I force clients in this queue not to leave a voice message on the mobile phone but rather the Asterisk system?

Because when the mobile phone which is an agent in the queue goes to voice mail it answers the call and then plays the voice mail message.

My initial thoughts are to maybe ask the mobile operator to switch off the voice mail functionality on those mobile phones and rather give a busy or engaged tone, but I would rather want to do this in Asterisk.

Any help or advise on this matter will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Daniel van den Berg SureTel – South Africa

7 thoughts on - Want Queues To Ignore Mobile Operators Voice Mails And Continue Ringing…?

  • I would suggest using the ‘M’ option on the Dial command to run a macro. The macro can just wait fir a key to be pressed and until it is pressed the Dial is still effectively ringing. So if it does go to voicemail then the call wont get put through. You need to make sure you have a suitable value set to abandon the agent call if its ringing too long. The callee may also find they are left multiple voicemail messages.

  • This is the approach we’ve used in the past: force the recipient to hit a button to accept the call, something which their mobile voicemail will never be able to do.

    The alternative – and it only really applies if you have control of the mobiles in question – is to disable the mobile network’s voicemail service entirely, and manage diverts from the handset. That way you can then recreate your own ‘mobile voicemail’ service on your asterisk platform with all the normal asterisk VM benefits such as email delivery, etc.

    You can then of course detect when those mobiles ‘divert’ to voicemail
    (since it’s now on your system), and kick them out of the queue at that point.

    Kind regards,

    Chris

  • Hi all,

    How does one detect the ‘divert’ to voicemail?

    Say we have PRI lines and as wel as SIP Trunks to connect to mobile phones. How can asterisk know if the call is being diverted??

  • If you’re using the mobile network’s voicemail service, you can’t as a general rule; you’ve no reliable way of knowing whether that call was answered by the user or their voicemail service.

    However, if you’re providing the mobile voicemail service yourself from your asterisk platform, then you can detect the *incoming* call from the mobile device in question to their mailbox and act accordingly.

    As I said in my earlier reply though, it depends on you having end-to-end control of the mobile devices in question and your mobile operator will allow their voicemail service to be completely disabled.

    Kind regards,

    Chris

  • It can’t.

    But you know (from the STD code) whether the call is being made to a mobile or land line; and you can have a good guess how long the mobile telco’s voicemail timeout is. So as long as your Dial() to the mobile phone times out sooner than the mobile network rings out for before deciding that nobody is going to answer, *your* voicemail will win.

    This will break if somebody reduces their voicemail timeout from the default;
    but hardly anybody ever changes the default settings in practice.