Auto dial numbers

[minidu]

Sorry if the answer has been put out before, but I couldn't find it.

I'm in the process of switching a hotel over and am hoping to find a way to remove the requirement to dial #, especially regarding the guest rooms, as a lot of the guests are older and the cost and time it would take to replace the dialing instructions on each phone.

 

[lneblett]

I recently completed a fairly complex hotel/resort of 120 extensions. Are you using ip phones or analog? In either event most will have a setting such that you use dial/send if such a key is available or the # to send the dial string. Most will also have a timeout such that you can if a digit is not entered within the # of seconds you programmed, the phone or ATA will autodial. You simply have to decide the appropriate delay.

I ask about analog or ip phones as keep in mind if analog, the message waiting light is apt not to be compatible with any ATA on the market.

 

[minidu]

We are keeping the analog phones in the rooms, using Grandstream GXW-4024's for the analog room phones.
The office phones it isn't a problem to use the send button.

 

[lneblett]

This is the attribute that you can change

No Key Entry Timeout Default is 4 seconds . Call will be completed within this time interval if no additional key entry occurs.

Again, I caution that the analog phones, if they are of the typical hotel type - Vodavi, Cetis family - Teledex, Telematrix, Scitec and others, will almost certainly not be message waiting capable as far as activating their MWI light. Stutter tone will work fine. It may not be an issue for you as perhaps all messages are taken at the front desk, but it was for me and my client. I had to change out the phones for models that suppoprted FSK message signalling and in my case, it was a 10 week leadt time.

 

[leejor]

From what I can gather, the 4024 has an internal dialplan, that hopefully works the same as the one in Linksys/Cisco devices. Syntax may be a bit different, but, a dialplan allows you to pre-define what digits are allowed to be dialled (valid numbers), and when a match is made, to send them off to the SIP server immediately. No wait, or having to dial #.

If set up correctly, users would not be aware of any difference.