Simultaneous Ring Feature (Alpha)

**fisamo** · 06-13-2009 04:48 AM

Another former-CallVantage-customer request: (though I'm not quite 'former' yet)

Please allow SimulRing to ring to more than one number--three would be a minimum, though 5 would certainly be a good number, too.

The other big request I have is to add a 'Confirm Calls' feature as a OPTION to SimulRing. If Confirm Calls is enabled, the simulring feature would ring all of the destination targets, and when any such line is picked up, it would require that the answering party press 1 in order to receive the call. This feature would allow a cellphone on the simulring list to be left off without diverting all incoming calls to the cell phone's voicemail.

I do understand that other users have expressed opposition to a mandatory 'Press 1' to receive simulring calls... That's why I would ask that it be a checkbox option (that you can even default at 'off').

**caseydoug** · 06-13-2009 08:42 AM

Originally Posted by fisamo

This feature would allow a cellphone on the simulring list to be left off without diverting all incoming calls to the cell phone's voicemail.

As currently implemented, does the Simul Ring feature divert all incoming calls to voicemail when the added phone is a cell phone and it is turned off?

**caseydoug** · 06-13-2009 11:31 AM

Answering my own question, I set up a cell phone number for simul ring, then turned the cell phone off. When I called in (from a different cell phone), the call did NOT go to voicemail; it rang my house phones. That's the good news. However, I did get some odd behavior. One time the called phone kept ringing long after the calling phone had connected to voicemail. Since the two phones were close together, I ended up recording the ringing phone on my voicemail. Another time, I tried to answer the phone, but I couldn't connect, and what I think was the cloned line kept ringing and ringing. I could stop the ringing only by "answering" all the extensions in the house (they didn't connect), and then waiting about five minutes before "ending" the call.

Some of this may be due to quirks in my two-line phone system. But if you use simul ring with a cell phone, I would suggest leaving the cell phone on.

I should also mention that I tried setting up simul ring with my Google Voice number, which in turn was configured to ring two cell phones. This actually worked reasonably well, even with one of the cell phones turned off. However, since GV does not let you adjust the number of rings before a call goes to GV voicemail, I was not able to force an unanswered call to go to VOIPo voicemail except by shortening the number of rings on the VOIPo side, which caused VOIPo voicemail to answer sooner than I wanted it to. I might be able to fix this by enabling call presentation or screening in GV, which would require pressing a key to accept the call (similar to "Confirm Call" suggested by fisamo), but I haven't tried it yet. My wife is getting annoyed by all the ringing.

**fisamo** · 06-13-2009 11:50 AM

Regarding inbound calls dumping into cell phone's voicemail when simulring is enabled... Generally, when someone calls my mobile phone and it's off, VZW immediately forwards the call to my VZW voicemail. I don't want that behavior to change. However, if I have simulring on and I drive out of coverage area or my phone's battery dies, I worry that as soon as VZW voicemail picks up, the inbound caller will end up leaving me messages there, and my home phone won't ring (or at least, it won't ring for long). I haven't tested the behavior with Voipo lately; that's just been my experience with other providers in the past.

**caseydoug** · 06-13-2009 12:03 PM

Yes, that was similar to my experience with VZW and Lingo, which also had simul ring. I didn't use VZW voicemail but had my unanswered calls forward to my Lingo line, where they would go to Lingo voicemail if I didn't pick up. If I turned the cell phone off, the calls would not ring my Lingo phone but would go straight to voicemail. So I left my cell phone on (going out of range was not a problem, since by definition I wasn't at home to get the call on the Lingo phone).

I think the behavior on VOIPo is different. Try it.

**fisamo** · 06-14-2009 11:05 AM

OK, so you ask me to try it, and I did (yesterday). Here's what happened:
Upon dialing my voipo number, my Voipo line started ringing, and I heard one ringback tone on the calling line. The voipo line would continue to ring, but there would be no more ringback tones. After about 5 rings, the voipo line would stop ringing. Instead of transferring to voicemail, though, the process would start over--I'd hear one ringback tone and get 5 rings on the voipo line. I don't know if there some some kind of feature clash, because my cell phone is also my failover number...

However, when I ran the same test today, I got normal ringing behavior on the Voipo line, and my call properly transferred to voicemail after 5 rings. So, I turned the cell phone back on and redialed. I heard normal ringback, and both lines rang. But when I answered the cellphone, the voipo line kept ringing, and the cell connection immediately dropped. I'm going to try a few more things, and if this keeps up, I'll submit a ticket...

Edit ... Going to submit a ticket now. I tried using a non-cell (another Voip) number, and when the simulring target # answered, the call dropped there, too.

**caseydoug** · 06-14-2009 11:31 AM

Yeah, I had a similar experience (see my thread below). Check your call logs for the time of the call, and I'll bet you see a whole bunch of calls at the same time between those two phones. In my case, I think it's related to the fact that the "Ring to" cell phone forwards back to the VOIPo phone if it is not answered. Simul Ring is still "alpha" after all.

**burris** · 06-14-2009 11:44 AM

I suppose I should join as well.

Up until a few days ago, the Simul Ring always worked fine and I could answer from my cell when I was out and about.
The last 2 calls, and I didn''t get many over the weekend as we were away for 2 days, had the same experience as fisamo...I answered and the cell disconnected. My answer machine did pick up the calls at the house.
My machine doesn't answer until after 4 rings and I answered my cell long before that.

The last call that I answered on my cell when it disconnected was at 10am today. It did leave a CID on the cell. However...at 1:02pm yesterday, I was able to successfully answer a Simul Ring call from my cell.

Since it has worked well for me for quite a while, I suspect some sort of glitch or maybe they did some programming change..

**fisamo** · 06-14-2009 02:04 PM

Going back to Brandon's note a few days ago indicating 'ironing things out' I suspect a few programming changes. That's not to say that Voipo has bad programmers, just that code doesn't always work as expected the first time. Right, Bill (Gates)?

I'll let everyone know what happens with my ticket. I don't see this as an urgent issue, just want to be sure they're aware of it.

**fisamo** · 06-18-2009 06:59 AM

Update:

I just did the two simple simulring tests that I had wanted confirmation on. With simulring set for my cell phone, I dialed my voipo number (not from the cell phone, of course), and my cell phone rang. Answering the cell phone, the call was connected properly.

I then turned the cell phone off and repeated the test. As I expected, my cell phone's VM picked up immediately.

Final test--I dialed my voipo line from my cell phone, and it rang a few times before I disconnected the call. (If it had routed the call to my cell phone, my cell phone VM would have picked up immediately.)

I don't know what, if anything, was changed with the simul ring feature since I reported the issue, but it seems to be working properly now. As I said in my latest ticket update, I'd like to test a little more this afternoon before closing the ticket out, though.