Project:VOIP

Our most frequently used extension - the back gate visitor phone

Cisco 7970 - the most common IP phone in the space

A few members had been interested in playing with VOIP/SIP things, mostly involving connecting the space phone line to the internet and doing voice menus, sip accounts for members, group chat, joining the Hackerspaces Call in, getting linked up to other hackspaces, etc.

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Functional features:

• Internal dialing between floors (really easy rather than going back and forth back and forth to talk with someone / do something)
• External calls get prompts for information and membership services and Lenny (please note that telephone extensions can be called from the main prompt)
• Doorbell-style ringtone on phone rings when back-gate visitors call ('doorbell ringer' zombie-phone is located above Electronics lab)
• Conference room function (mainly extension 4225)
• Weather-Resistant Outdoor Delivery Gate Phone - GAI-Tronics Titan for Rail PDF Specifications
  • now with Robonaut integration - IRC users informed when a delivery call is made and also when not answered.
• Toll-Free Outgoing dialing (0800 style numbers) / Banned dialing for others
• General telephone information provided (address, nearest tube/train stops, membership information pointing to the website)
• Semi-secret comedy extensions (we're getting there... Lenny is an easy favourite)
• Easy networking to other Hackspaces - possibly explore Spacephone networking and others
• Dialing of Emergency 999 / 112 functionality Decided to not be a liability with this (for now) *** (outgoing call can be recorded and email alert sent to trustees and/or mailing list for safety)

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Current extensions/ locations (specific locations to be appropriately and tastefully determined:

• 6601 - Ground Floor
• 6602 - Basement
• 6603 - Radio Shack
• 6604 - Biohacking Laboratory
• 6605 - LHS Rack
• 6607 - LHS Table

• 4225 - LHS conference bridge
• 777 - Back gate phone
• Virtual extensions for wifi sip clients are OK, but we'll need to manually add them. Want to play with it? Contact kraptv

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PABX System details:

• HW: Hosted on Bell a Dell Optiplex 780 with a Digium TDM400 with two FXO connections managing incoming calls and one FXS port for potential future analogue usage
• Phones are Cisco 7970G SIP handsets running G722 and the gate phone is a surplus analogue GAI-TRONICS Titan for Rail outdoor linesman phone attached to a Cisco ATA186. Cisco 7941 used as door bell ringer.
• OS: Linux with tftpd and httpd service enabled for phones that need to boot and load config files over tftp, LHS logo screen graphics, etc.
• PHONE SW: Asterisk 11.7 plus DAHDI 2.0.X driver for Digium card.
• EXTERNAL VOICE GENERATION: Voice prompt aiff/ulaw files generated from bash script on an OS X 10.9+ Mac using the UK English "Kate" voice. Current phrase-file shell script copied with voice prompts every time it is updated. Script automatically copied alongside sound files to /usr/share/asterisk/sounds/en_US_f_Allison/lhs/
• CONFIG NOTE: Custom configs/scripts to be shared confidentially as they contain passwords.

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Infrastructure needs/Future uses:

• Virtual extensions/voicemail-to-email automation for members - this is a manual process for now.
• Possible further integration of IRC channel with the phones (last messages on idle displays, text to speech, etc)

Kraptv comments about some possible concerns about disturbing the peace:

If people are annoyed at the phones ringing - they can press the "Do Not Disturb" button and it won't ring. In this design - I am mindful to keep a productive peace - I helped implement the phone system at a large cartoon company and was mindful to the variety of edge cases and balancing of sensitive users vs. collaborative users.

If it is completely crap and everyone hates it, we can scrap it easily and say 'man, corded phones are so 90's! Good riddance!' - but there are still many valid uses and an example of fun infrastructure enhancement. Noone is obligated to answer the phone. Noone has to touch it. It's a co-operative, not some sort of business that has a telephone response service level agreement. ;-)

Dial 020 7033 9080 to test the LHS incoming phone line, please send feedback directly via email to Kraptv or leave a voicemail to extension 6601!

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References:

• http://www.asterisk.org/
• http://www.digium.com/
• http://www.gai-tronics.org.uk
• http://www.cisco.com/