idea discussion - Music on Phone

[craigreilly]

Some of our employees would like to have some music during the day. They are in single offices so this would not bother anyone. (We tend to do a good job blocking most of the streaming sites - just to protect our bandwidth. )
Immediate solution: I could give them their own SP BLF and they could listen to the on hold music. Cons: could get tendious managing this and use a lot of SP's. Also, an incoming ring becomes just a "BEEP" (atleast on the Yealinks).

So what if 3cx On-Hold music was played via MultiCast. Of course, the phone vendors might have to get in on this as well to allow the user to turn it on and off at will - using a button or something.

(This could be done with external device - http://www.barix.com/Annuncicom_Family/321/ but still require some way for users to turn it off on the phone itself.)



Thoughts?

 

[gschwab]

Personally I think I would just get them each a cheap MP3 player or something. I guarantee there would be way too much "I want this music and I want that and Susie down room 210 HATES jazz and old Joe in shipping just fell asleep again" nope, major PITA if you ask me. :mrgreen:

 

[leejor]

Being in single offices (hopefully no conflict, if they keep the volume down) why can't they just just bring in a radio, or is that a bit too old fashioned? Unless they are in their 70's, they probably already have a music player, and that could even be plugged into their computer speakers, or a cheap, stand alone unit. I'm surprised that a solution, such as this has not already been implemented by individuals. If someone wants to listen to music at work, and it's permitted, they already are.

Listening to any sort of music, intended as a hold source, all day long, would drive me up the wall, in short order.

 

[craigreilly]

Well - some people don't like change. Our old PBX had a Feature code for them to listen to music. I didn't know anyone even knew about it, let alone used it. But apprently they did.

And when features are "lost" they come to me...

 

[lneblett]

Craig,

Come now, actually you should be extolling the new feature that the system has to offer..........silence. Remember, it is golden.

I have also run across this in a couple of cases, but in each it was where they had taken an off-air radio feed and were using that as MOH and also when the receiver was on-hook it would play through the speaker phone. Actually, kind of a nice idea, but all must like the source and it is more of burden on the network not to mention that the second it goes down, just another round of complaints. None of the clients had received permission to do so nor were they aware of ASCAP or BMI and the other copyright types taking a dim view of the practice. Apparently, the prospect of the situation scared them to the extent that they investaged other sources such as Muzak and determined that it costs too much so they took it down, explaining the reality of the situation, and people started using their own personal devices.

 

[craigreilly]

all great points... thanks.