I am the VOIP Sysadmin for a mid-sized ISP in Los Angeles. We have been selling hosted asterisk-based pbx services as well as installing TrixBoxes at client sites for about the last year. One of the things that many of my clients see as a benefit to switching to either our hosted solution or their own TrixBox is the idea that they no longer have to dial 9 to get out. Since we have not ever had a client that felt the need for seven digit extensions (the most we have had is four digit), we've never run into any problems by not dialing 9 to get an outside line. I am setting up my first Pro box to test and I was going to put my office on it, but it sure seems like you cannot do "standard" seven, ten, or eleven digit dialing to call out. I found the setting where you can change the prefix, but that doesn't really do me any good. I don't want any prefix to get out. This isn't a major issue, and so far I am still planning on selling Pro from now on, but I can't understand why we can't dial out without a prefix....
Dial 9 to get out
Hi there,
If you are using the Polycom phones that currently are in our "Certified Hardware" list (501, 601, 4000) your users will *not* have to dial either a "9" to get out or even a "1" if the phone is on-hook. They would just dial "310-555-1212" and then either pick up the handset or press "Dial" (to make it a speakerphone call).
Why is the "dial 9" still around after all these years?
Well, it enables you to create an automatic dial-plan that allows for quick 4-digit extension dialing. If you did not dial "9" (or some other key) to indicate you were making a toll call, then the system wouldn't know the difference between you dialing ext. 2125 and "212-555-1212". Therefore you wouldn't be able to quickly dial extensions with the phone off-hook (or even on-hook in the case of Aastra).
Try this with your Polycom. Pick up the handset and dial an extension. See how nicely it auto-sends? Then dial 9+1+number. See how nicely it autosends? That is the reason for a reserved key (such as "9") for dialing "out".
Some of us use trixbox in less commercial environments. I have a setup at a church, which is just the right size for trixbox Pro SE. Explaining to the dozens of people that find themselves there that they have to dial 9 seems a bit much. I understand it may delay the dial plan execution.
I totally agee with you and I have this in the suggestion queue.
why don't you need to dial a 9 if you're using a polycom handset? is it doing it for you 'in the background' - if so, how does it know what to do?
The Polycom phones don't care if a number matches part of the internal dial plan if the number is dialed when the phone is on-hook. This, coupled with entries in one of the Asterisk dial plans (internal-invisible.conf for those of you that are curious) allows the Polycom phones to be used to dial without a 9 being added on.
Any update on 9 prefix not being required?
There is no plan to change this in trixbox Pro at this time. There are very few requests to change it, if people continue to ask for it, it will move it up in priority.
You can add me to the list of customers that would like to see the ablity to remove the 9 prefix.
Put me on the list of people who dont' want to dial 9.
Again, if you are using Polycom phones we insert a dialplan into the phone that bypasses this. At the next design meeting I will bring this up again.
We have 4 Polycom 601's and do not see this behavior. We have to dial 9 or the call fails. What are we missing?
I have also tried dialing out with my Polycom 501 without the 9 with the phone on the hook and the call fails.
Obvious, to get rid of 9 prefix, you must edit the default outbound route called 9_outside.....
Are you using the provisioning tool to configure the phones or are you configuring them via the phone's web interface?
To all:
If you dial 10 plain digits matching:
NXXNXXXXXX
Where:
X = Any number
N = Any number but 0 or 1
Then the server will automatically try to prepend a 91 and dial. If this fails the server will try to prepend a 9 and dial. This means that with *any* phone you should be able to add the dial plan NXXNXXXXXX and dialout without prepending a 9 or 91.
I've tested this on my Polycom 501 on firmware version 1.6.6 and a tb Pro system. I'm confident it will work for other phones that have live dialing.
Instructions for doing this on 1.6.6:
1. Browse to your phones IP address
2. Click the "SIP" Link
3. Enter your username/password (defaults are "Polycom" and "456", respectively).
4. Add the entry: [2-9]xx[2-9]xxxxxx to the Digitmap section at the bottom.
5. Restart the phone and use your sweet new dialplan!
I'm going to update the suggestions ticket Kerry referenced asking to include dial correction for local (7 digit) and other numbers (such as 1 + 10 digits, international).
Any questions? Send me a PM or update this thread.
Thanks,
David J Kullmann
tb Pro Support
Which other phones have live dialing? In non-profit installs, we often do not have the benefit of Polycom phones. Often, we have ATAs.
Greg:
Most IP phones have this feature. I know Polycoms and Aastras have live dialing. If you are looking for the least expensive solution you'll have to compare prices online.
David J Kullmann
tb Pro Support
I too am annoyed by the requirement of a prefix to dial out. Several of my smaller customers using older (and non-Pro) versions of trixbox prefer not to dial a prefix. Two of my customers are residential, but are telecommuters. They don't want to explain business-phone features to the babysitter or other houseguests.
Thanks,
-Mike
Sign me up too! it's really annoying having to prefix outside calls... Using CE I just add XXXXX. to the dial plan since none of my extensions exceed 6 digits.... Can't do that with PRO SE. Might force me to go back to CE...
The simplest solution is to manually configure the phones and then set the dialplan on the phones (or ATA) to always send 9 before the dial string. I do that on my wife's extension so that it acts like a normal phone.
You can modify the Polycom digitmap to remove and replace digits if needed.
The string RR9R1[2-9]xxxxxxxxx will add a 9 to 18585551212 when sent out in the INVITE.
R(remove)R(replace)R(end of string)
This does get tricky when doing 7 digits. That is why in a large deployment using 9 to dial out makes more sense because you can start your extensions with 1-8 and it has been around forever. It makes it easier for the end users when replacing a Nortel, Samsung, etc.
If using seven digit dialing you should make your extension numbers 10xx so that you can still do matching dial plans so the phone will send at the end of extensions and PSTN calls. Nobody should be dialing 1010xxx numbers on your system anyways, right?
There is a tech bulletin on this at the following link;
http://knowledgebase.polycom.com/kb/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docTy...
Chadwick -- I owe you a cup of coffee, at least! I've been testing TrixBox 2.6.0.7 (updated to 2.6.1.0) with a couple of Polycom phones and couldn't understand for the life of me why my 9|. rule wasn't working. I was feeling more and more dense (not to mention defeated) until I came across your posting; now that I understand how the digitmap works, I can offer my client the choice to dial 9 or not.
Kind regards,
Steve
Just support the TB community (and also buy Polycom phones because they are the best...)
I operate the TrixBox system at my non-profit Air Ambulance company. We have many problems with people accidentally dialing 911. It would be nice to be able to configure this to be any number, * or #. We use mostly Cisco 7940/7960 phones.
You can change the dialing prefix to any number you want.
The auto prefixing of phone numbers of certain lengths with a 91 or 9 is not compatible with most countries outside of North America. I can see why you might want this to make everything super simple for users in North America but it just makes things a whole lot more complicated for us non North American users.
When using HUD for dialing a 91 or 9 will get added to most numbers you try to dial. The biggest problem is when we have created dial plan to route specific phone numbers over a specific trunks/providers. Instead of creating 1 dial plan we need to create 2 or 3 dial plans.
The auto generated dial strings for the Polycom phones also include a lot of number strings that do not apply to non North American users. If you also enter phone numbers into the IVR for forwarding calls externally it will automatically add a 91 or 9 prefix depending on the number length you entered.
What we want is the option to turn this off so that it is nice and simple for us non North American users too.
Probably just to big an ask to consider the "Rest of the World" factor for every setting.
Gasmanz
Member Since:
2007-02-28