Call Waiting to be answered by IVR

Hello,

We’ve gotten FreePBX set up successfully with a TDM410P card and 4 FXO ports. We connected two analog phone lines to the card and set up Inbound Routes in which everything is working great.

The problem we are facing now is that the IVR only answers when no calls are in progress… for example if the receptionist is already speaking to someone and another call comes through, it will be treated as call waiting and the call will ring forever and the IVR will never answer. We’ve tried to disable call waiting and still have the same results. Any help or guidance will greatly be appreciated. Thank you.

-Tim

You say “if the receptionist is already speaking to someone and another call comes through” but does that other call come through on the second line, or still on the first?

Still one the first.

You need to remember that no matter how fancy Asterisk/FreePBX is, and despite all the wonderful things it can do, if you plug it in to a phone jack, it’s just an old fashioned phone. You can’t have two simultaneous calls happening on a single analog line with a phone.

Since you’re dealing with business lines, maybe you would be able to get the phone company to set up a hunt group between your two lines or something, so that if the first is in use the call bumps over to the second, which Asterisk could pick up if it’s not busy.

Thank you so much for your help, that cleared things up!