VoIP user Services

Hello Everyone,

We are currently looking into adding extra features to the VoIP User SIP termination, and what we would like to know is what would you like to see added to VoIP user' services ?

We can't promise every request to be implemented, but if there are enough requests for a feature we will consider adding it.

Things requested so far are:-

1. Voicemail on the PSTN to SIP termination

This can work by having a "generic" style voicemail outgoing message with recorded caller messages then being sent to the SIP Phone users e-mail account as an audio file attachment.

2. Forwarding of a user [!at] _voipuser.co.uk (replace the [!at] with a @) SIP account to any other SIP account and be able to change forwarding as often as needed.

Discussed previously over on the FWD forwarding thread.

We have a SIP server on a main internet backbone at the moment which we could pull into service for this. It basically would enable you to maintain one address/number, which could be forwarded to any other SIP service provider allowing you to try out various providers without having to maintain a while bank of addresses. This is something we could quite easily integrate into the existing control panel.

If you have any thoughts about the way that those should be implemented and controlled, then we really want to hear about it.

Similarly, if you have any other ideas for some interesting SIP related services then we want to hear about those too.

Regards,

Tj

Hi TJ,

Both suggestions sound great!

With the voicemail, I'd prefer receiving a VMWI (voicemail waiting indicator) on my phone rather than email. I'd imagine that this could be implemented more easily with the SIP forwarding suggestion.

Regarding the SIP forwarding, will this work in both directions? So I register my phone as intradink [!at] voipuser.co.uk (replace the [!at] with a @), this gets forwarded to my chosen VOIP provider for outbound calls, but what about when someone calls me on my VOIP providers account? Will this also be forwarded back to my voipuser.co.uk account?

If the above is true, then you've got yourself an excellent proposition.

Doh!.... that was me not logged in

That's something that was discussed over here.

It's not something that's easy to do and maintain a free service. Basically you would have set your other service providers to forward to the one account (eg intradink@....) and not all service providers allow forwarding.

Would be good to get together a definitive list of those that do offer forwarding to alternate SIP addresses if any knows which do and which don't.

Dean

I thought as so, which is why I wanted a little clarification on the forwarding service. Still sounds great though.

Nice.

great idea.
how about making the domain more "universal" like something.com, instead of co.uk?

Quote:

how about making the domain more "universal" like something.com, instead of co.uk?

We've done that but went for a .org which is more representative we thought. We're not really a company or business...

The .co.uk will still get you here, but now it's just a redirect.

Dean

Back to the original topic, VoIP User has a new free outbound (PSTN, SIP or IAX) service in beta at the moment with a bunch of people on here and which we hope to launch in the next week or so.

We've built a new control panel for controlling the inbound 0844 etc numbers also, with some new facilities based on feedback we've already had.

What else would you guys like to see?

Dean

dean :

What else would you guys like to see?

Customisable OGM on the voicemail . I've had a few people say "I thought I'd got the wrong number so I didn't leave a message' ... Which kinda defeats the object!

Quote:

Customisable OGM on the voicemail

Problem is that's not possible without us paying for the data traffic.

Assuming we can't do that, but we might be able to change the default pre-recorded message, is there any wording we could use (without giving the phone number) to make it clear that someone had the correct number and that it was a generic message?

Dean

dean :

Quote: Customisable OGM on the voicemail Problem is that's not possible without us paying for the data traffic. Assuming we can't do that, but we might be able to change the default pre-recorded message, is there any wording we could use (without giving the phone number) to make it clear that someone had the correct number and that it was a generic message? Dean

It's the fact that it isn't customised that I think has put one or two callers off from leaving a message ... people "these days" tend to expect either a personal OGM or something along the lines of 'the caller on <number> is'n't availale' (either way, confirming that the caller has dialed the correct number) -- and both appear to fall into the category of things you want do without charging.

I guess it comes down to what people are using the voipuser number for... Personally, I'm use it as a 'home office' number for times when I'm working in my study at home (rather than the office). So as the OGM can't be customised for each user, then I'd prefer a more formal OGM. (but if I was using it for non-business-related calls then I'd probably be happy just as it is).

Just a thought... are you perhaps able to offer, say, 2 or 3 'generic' OGMs? If you can, then you could keep the current friendly one and add a formal one and perhaps allow users to select which OGM gets used? Then everyone can be happy! I guess that comes down to your arragements with the PSTN provider.

Quote:

Customisable OGM on the voicemail

Just wanted to let you know we are now actively working to get that setup.

Messages will still be sent by email.

Dean

Hi,

I am not sure whether and how text to voice is possible but it would be nice to have the possibility to receive text messages, emails or so on my sip account.

If I am available it is read out similar to text messages that are displayed on the mobile.

Probably email would be the easiest to start with. You would provide a gateway, ie. an email address like text2sip [!at] voipuser.org (replace the [!at] with a @). If the subject contains a valid voipuser.org address the body of the message is transfered to the user as soon as the user is available. There are packages available to convert text to speech.

This feature would connect those people that don't have a headset or are afraid of using VOIP. Text messages on mobiles are a big deal!

What do you think?

Friedger

As per my waffling elsewhere on the forums, how about trying to get e164.org to allow you to give an option to automatically register the PSTN->VoIP numbers that are hosted by voipuser (ie do registry add/deletes when a number is provisioned by a user and a sip or iax uri - not pstn re-dial - is used for redirection).

Back this up by adding an article showing some simple-but-effective asterisk configs that support e164.org ....

Hello Friedger,

friedger :

I am not sure whether and how text to voice is possible but it would be nice to have the possibility to receive text messages, emails or so on my sip account. If I am available it is read out similar to text messages that are displayed on the mobile.

Most SIP servers support the so called SIMPLE standard which is basically the option to send instant messages and to also keep track of presence (is the user online or away etc.). Until now i haven't come across a phone that can receive or send these type of messages, but i guess it won't take too long before we'll see the (Wireless) SIP phones starting to support SIMPLE in a way that mobile phones support SMS.

I guess the readout of text messages would be an intermediate step, but SMS will be compatable with SIMPLE in the (far) future.

Anyone knows about a SIMPLE IM client apart from microsoft windows messenger ?

Regards,
Tj