I want my VoIP phone to be able to pick up on a call in progress and simply join in without having to go through a bunch of conferencing steps.
I need to be able to put a single extension “123-4567” on two different phones in the same office. I want to be able to answer an incoming call on one handset and, while the call is still in progress, pick up the phone call on the handset and join the conversation. I want it to work just like (or a as similarly as possible) to a home phone where you can get a call in the kitchen and have someone else pick it up in the bedroom.
I know this may sound very simple but I have been told over and over again in the past that VoIP simply does not do this. Can it be done?
This is for a classroom standalone implementation so anything I am willing to try anything to make it work.
That’s not how VOIP works. I’m pretty sure you can’t get there from here.
Your choices are to “barge” into a call in progress or place all of your calls in a conference. Both suck, but at least they are possible.
Ultimately, the reason is that every call through an Asterisk server is point to point, even if you have several phones on the same extension number. To add another device to the call, another session needs to be established and then conferenced.
Having said that, I suppose it could be possible to build an “immediate” mode where the phone was automatically joined to a call in progress, but it’s going to be something that you have to write yourself, and the other phones in the system are going to have to be set up to allow it. It will be a lot of work.
If you used Barge, you could connect to a call in progress “as if” you had picked up a phone like we did “back in the olden days”, but doing it automatically, presents us with problems. You can do it with a button press, but just by picking up the handset? Not feasibly.
Thanks for the quick reply. I am not familiar with “barge”. Is that a FreePBX server function or is it a VoIP telephone function?
It sounds like it might meet my need (or at least get me closer than I am now). Can you suggest where I might be able to get more info on how to implement/test this?
Obviously, I will Google it, but it’s nice to hear the recommendations of folks in the community.