Feature request: redirect incoming call.

[Troy Cauble]

laurent.debacker at advalvas.be wrote:
ontent-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
> 
> Hi,
> 
> When a wall is incoming, minisip allows to either accept or reject the call.
> 
> I am looking for a feature allowing the subscriber, when an incoming call
> hits minisip, to have a third option, in addition to accept or reject the
> call.
> 
> The third option would be to enter a new destination, and press a
> "redirect" button.
> 
> Would this be feasible? Is it in the roadmap? If not, can you envisage it?
> 
> The reason for this is the following.
> We have an office and many remote workers. When an employee comes to the
> office, he can be sitting at different desks (business centre).
> Every morning, the user has to register his phone extension to the phone
> located at the place he sits. Painful procedure, and people forget it.
> 
> Now, the idea is to replace the PABX with Asterisk or SipX. We install
> minisip on all PCs.
> 
> If the worker works from home, then, incoming calls reach minisip.
> If the worker is in the office, the incoming call reaches minisip. The
> user can either take the call on minisip, or, redirect the call, in real
> time, to the phone aside him, using the feature suggested above.
> 
> Thanks for your help.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Laurent.

Laurent,

I know some things about SIP, but I don't speak for the minisip
project or know what's in their roadmap.

Short answer:
I suggest looking more closely at Asterix to see if it already
supports your need without changes in minisip.  It's reported
to be very full featured.

Longer answer:
Is the "phone aside him" a SIP phone??

In an all SIP environment, the functionality you're talking about
is usually accomplished in the proxy or B2BUA (Asterix or SipX).
Basically users could register multiple hard and soft clients
and, possibly with the help of presence indications, the proxy
would ring one or more than one phone, sequentially or concurrently.
(Depending on the proxy's capability and configuration.)

Asterix may be able to do the same, even with a mixture of SIP
and POTS phones.  I haven't used it, but I wouldn't be surprised
if it had a web interface to configure "where people are now".
The user would have to remember to "register" their hard phone,
but the first call to their minisip would remind them.

While there are SIP protocol elements that could support
"redirect from the client", you'd have to verify that they're
supported on your chosen proxy and confirm interoperability.
And it wouldn't be any easier to use than the (theorized)
Asterix interface.  The only advantage is that it could get
that first call to the hard phone without the user being
proactive.  But who knows, Asterix might even have an
intercept capability.

-troy