PBX dial 9 for outside line on asterisk

General Help
1

Scenario: Customer has an old PBX. They dial 9 to get an outside line that was connected to a T1 provided by the PSTN. After dialing 9, the user would hear a new dialtone and all digits dialed would go straight out the T1 to the PSTN.

Now, replace the PSTN T1 with a T1 to an asterisk server. The user still dials 9 and the PBX still connects the caller directly to the T1 that now goes to Asterisk. But now the user does not hear a dialtone and does not know to dial numbers.

Asterisk will be sending the call out over a SIP trunk once it gets the digits to dial.

Question: Is there a way to make Asterisk’s T1 act just like the PSTN’s T1?

Thanks.

2

Create an outbound route that points to your T-1 and in the dial patterns put:

9|

That does it for PSTN lines.

3

Thanks for the suggestion. The PBX does not send Asterisk the 9, it expects to just pick up the PSTN T1, then the caller should hear a dial tone and dial digits. Since the call is no longer going directly to the PSTN over the T1, but rather goes to Asterisk, then to a SIP trunk, how will the caller hear dial tone?

PBX -> T1 -> asterisk -> SIP trunk -> soft switch -> PSTN

Thanks for the help.

4

if I’m understanding you correctly:

[OLD-PBX] --> [Asterisk] --> SIP_or_othre_PSTN_Connection

Sounds like you need to have the call immediately transfered to a DISA connection on Asterisk. In the case of an FXS this would be setting immediate=yes with a context defined that dropped the channel into DISA. For a T1 I suspect there is a way to do the same, you’ll have to poke around a bit to figure out how to fire off the call.

It may just be context=my-disa-dialtone in the zapata.conf file and then in extensions_additional.conf

[my-disa-dialtone]
exten => _.,1,Disa(no-password|from-internal)
exten => _.,n,hangup

assuming you want the dialed calls to drop into from-internal (giving them access to all internal extensions and features as well as all outbound routes).

5

That’s a great use for DISA! I was considering a custom context, but had not figured out how to match a pattern for outbound dialing. I’ll give it a try and let you know how it turned out.

Thanks again.

6

I’m having same problem. I need to generate dial tone on T1 non-PRI d4, ami, e&m wink
I was trying to use DISA but I don’t find the way to get into it without dialing any number first.

7

I think the problem of the second dial tone is overrated. When I put in our 1st asterisk system on a PRI, I nearly panicked when I realized that there was no second dial tone after dialing 9. I then realized that you didn’t even have to dial a “9”.

So, when I commissioned the system, as part of the training I simply told the users that “You no longer have to dial 9. But if you do, It’s OK.”. Took our users all of 71 1/2 seconds to embrace the new procedures.

In other words, use the old marketing trick. Turn something that might be perceived as a negative (you don’t get a 2nd dialtone after dialing 9) to a positive (but, you don’t have to dial 9 anymore).

Of all the features Asterisk/FreePBX provides, I think I got the biggest positive feedback from the users not having to dial “9”. Go Figure!

Bill/W5WAF

8

The problem is that I’m connecting a dialer via T1 that need dialtone to be able to dial on T1 Wink and I don’t find how to make this work.