Follow Me Ring Time doesn't work for cell phones

I’m attempting to understand the Follow Me - Ring Time

Depending upon the Ring Strategy I understand the numbers in the Follow Me list will be called in various orders. They should be called for the time defined in Ring Time.

However … when the Follow Me List includes a cell phone that phone will ring and ring and ring - completely ignoring the Ring Time setting.

It’s as if Asterisk ignores the Ring Time setting for any external number - why?

My goal is to have an incoming call ring an internal extension for 8-seconds.
If nobody picks up the ring the cell phone for 8-seconds.
If nobody answers then fall back to the Asterisk voice mailbox.

I haven’t been able to find the correct mix of Initial Ring Time, Ring Strategy, Ring Time, and List values.

Help!

It is very probable that once the call goes out to the cellphone and the cellphone starts ringing, your trunk provider is signalling your FreePBX server and telling it that the call has been answered.

Are you by any chance using a POTS line, either through DAHDI or an FXO gateway for the call out to the cellphone?

Have you tried to enable confirm calls?

From my understanding of this post and previous replies, after it rings an internal extension it is forwarding to an external number (your cellphone) you cannot control the ring time of your cellphone that is up to the carrier. You could however create a new extension and use Zoiper on your phone, you could control that ringtime.

I have no issues with this. Follow me rings for the exact amount of time. I should note though that a call out to a cell phone could take 5 seconds or more before it actually starts ringing the cell phone due to post dial delay on the outbound carrier. 8 seconds is way too short, and don’t use 8 seconds lol. Each ring is 5 seconds. So 8 seconds is a ring and a half and it’s weird. Try 10 to extension and 15 to cell and see if that helps anything.

What is your ring strategy and where is your follow me no answer destination? Is it to a voicemail? Or is it set to normal routing? Try setting that to go to a VM.

This could be the case. We are still using POTS lines with a Digium FXO interface card. I was unaware such a thing could happen. And would explain why Asterisk is not adhering to the Ring Time I’ve defined for the List of numbers.

I’ve only been able to successfully work with an external cell phone by using the Confirm Calls ability. This presented a new issue that I’m working through - when the cell phone is answered the automated message saying to “press 1 to answer” was already playing.

Which leads me to believe that @arielgrin was correct - the signalling on the POTS lines is making Asterisk believe the call has already been answered. Even though the cell phone is still ringing.

For the time being we will work with the Confirm Calls option and adjust the recording which is played such that it repeats more frequently. This will permit the person answering the cell phone to hear the ‘press 1’ prompt much faster, allowing them to answer the call before the time-out happens.

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