Auto answer/Hands free

[sunstate]

On most of the traditional PBX's I've messed with there is a Hands free/Privacy/Tone option on the phone. When you turn hands free or privacy on, that is only for extension to extension calls. Outside calls coming in will still ring the phone regularly. I am trying to figure out how to mimic this behavior with the Cisco SPA and Yealinks. I see an auto-answer option in the Yealink, but when that is enabled it auto-answers all calls, internal and external.

Is there any way of doing this?

 

[leejor]

The device would have to be able to differentiate between an internal or external call. There is no distinctive ringtone for an external call (at this point), so the only thing you have to work with is the caller ID if the device can make use of that. I'm pretty sure that the Linksys device can't.

 

[sunstate]

Then how is it able to distinguish between internal and external calls on forwarding rules?

 

[leejor]

Because the call is "within" 3CX, it's not being presented to an extension. 3CX knows where the call came from (a trunk or an extension), and how to deal with it. It is a feature of the extension (handsfree) that you want to make use of. If there was distinctive ringing, a different ring tone sent for an external call, AND, the set could make use of that SIP message to activate the feature, then it would work. Your device has to have a "trigger" to activate the feature and the PBX has to be able to send this trigger. Some proprietary PBX/set combinations may be able to make this work.

 

[sunstate]

Gotcha, I guess that makes sense. Thanks.