Reserve lines for emergencies

[infonetics]

Is it possible to reserve any concurrent call slots for emergency purposes? A client had a situation last week where there was a school lockdown - parents were calling in, swamping all available slots, so nothing could be used to call other extensions, or even 911.

 

[mlump]

I do not believe there is a way to do this natively through 3CX. However that does not mean it can't be done. What do you use for you external connection, PSTN Gateway or SIP. You could possibly work with your provider or gateway device and limit the number of inbound calls so you always have something left on the outbound side.

 

[leejor]

You may need to create a second trunk group. Many offices have a PSTN gateway, one or two lines, reserved for emergency (911/999/112) calls. If the internet fails, they can still call out.

 

[infonetics]

We use SIP. The problem wasn't the SIP trunk, we were hitting the 16-call limit of the 3CX license. I'll see what we can do with the provider (Vitelity)

 

[eagle2]

Simply create 2 SIP trunks, one with 7 sim. calls, other (for emergency) with 1, same settings, if you have 8 channels to the provider.
This will work on SIP trunks without registration (incoming calls to be handled by the first one, DDI numbers etc.), or the provider must allow multiple registrations. Otherwise you must negotiate a separate SIP trunk.
For solving the 16 sim. calls issue limit the number of calls to provider to lower limit (e.g. 7), thus allowing 8 sim. calls for internal calls, otherwise you must increase the number of 3CX licenses.