We have a unique situation that we need to keep 20 phones constantly connected to a conf room, almost like a PTT.
We are using /var/spool/asterisk and call files with a cron job so freepbx will call all 20 phones every 5 secs and the polycoms are set to auto answer so we can get all the phones into the conf. The issue is is there a way to not have the phone disconnect when the receiver is hung up. They are all polycoms 335’s. There are no trunks connected to this system it is purely internal intercom. All users have to be able to pick up and make an annoucement to all the other users.
I don’t think there is anyway to do it. They need it to work like the old school nextel walky talky. The problem is even if i got Freepbx to ignore the disconnect signal the hook switch on the phone would not switch the phone back to speaker mode so they would not hear anyone else paging. They literally don’t want any dialing and never be removed from the conf bridge. We are using Polycoms that auto answer into speaker mode but we need them to stay in speaker mode and never disconnect when the handset is picked ip
Perhaps you could use both a multicast server and phones that support the reception of multicast, It would likely only be one way though, the phone itself might be able to change that.
It sounds like you want to have people pick up the handset, speak, and hang up. When they speak, their speech should be sent to every handset over their speaker.
If that’s what you want, all you need to do is figure out how to make the phones call an extension automatically when the handset is picked up. I’m not sure about polycoms, but most phones have a dial plan setting that can say ‘dial this number when zero numbers gave been dialled’.
The number that should be dialled is a page group that contains all those phones.
Thats what we are doing now but they don’t want a dial and connect, just pickup talk, hangup and still hear the other people talking over speaker, then pickup talk, hangup and still hear the conversation. Right now when they hang up a cron job redials and reconnects the phone back to the conf bridge. I am going to see if we can use some type of walkie talkie mic on the headphone port to keep the phone connected then we don’t have to pick up the receiver and hang it up.
It sounds like that to me too, I just don’t see a way to do that in FreePBX, if the phone can be teased to initiate a multicast session with transmit on on going off-hook, and simultaneously listen to the same multicast address all the time but that is hardware dependent surely.
IT sounds very bizaar but they want all the phones connected all the time. To prevent everyone from hearing everyone all day we clipped the speakerphone mics. They pick up the handset talk put the handset down then want the phone to go back to speakerphone so they can listen for the next annoucement. Lift the handset talk put it down then put the phone back into speakermode. Just like the nextel 2 way radios. There is so much activity that when they put the handset down they could miss an announcement in the 5-8 secs the phone takes to ring back into the conf. There are 28 locations tied together by voip. I can’t think of any other way to do this with that many locations besides 2 way mobile cell phones but they don’t want that high of a bill.
The idea of a permanently live multicast channel is interesting, especially since the later post states that multiple locations are involved, something the first post didn’t mention. Sort of equivalent to trunked radio over voip that I would guess means considering alternative technologies.