"Charlie Tester"

[christcorp]

Tim; had a thought. Was wondering if you had a "How To" established yet for all the "NEW CUSTOMERS" that will be coming over to VoipO when you open to the public. The reason I ask is because some of us who have ported our permanent line to VoipO could have our WIVES/HUSBANDS/SIGNIFICANT OTHER look at the "Instructions - How To" and figure out how the features work, and they could give us THEIR ASSESSMENT of the instructions. We'll know if they need to be reworded or changed for the average customer coming aboard. (The Alpha/Beta testers are too technically knowledgeable and too close to testing to be objective in what is "Easy" or "Hard" to understand.

For instance; today my wife was talking to her best friend from Albuquerque. She talked for about 30 minutes. (She never talks that long believe it or not). I asked her how the call quality was. She said it sounded better than the packet8 line EVER DID. OK, I was pumped. Then came the infamous "BUT". She said that while they were talking, she could hear the phone "RINGING". I said, what do you mean ringing? She said, like when you call someone and the phone rings until they pick it up. I told her if she heard 2 beeps then the ringing, it was "CALL WAITING". She said, it was. She asked me how to answer the second call because she was still able to talk to the first person. I said; I guess you hit flash or the hook switch. (To be honest, I haven't tried). She asked; how do I get back to the first caller? I said, I guess you hit flash again. Again, I don't know. Never tried it.

That's when she asked me; WHAT ELSE CAN THIS THING DO. It passed the WAF test with the call quality. She said it was the BEST phone call quality she's had at home in 4 years. (Nothing wrong with the old Packet8; just that this is MUCH BETTER). So now, she wants to know what all the other features are that you can do from the phone. (She's not too interested in all the Vpanel stuff). She wants to know about call waiting, 3 way calling, call forwarding, etc... All the common features people do PER CALL and FROM THE PHONE. I know she would love to try out the instructions or whatever and give her feedback. Any thoughts Later... Mike...

[burris]

You make some good points, but for me, I don't think my wife wants to or will go beyond simply picking up the phone and being able to either answer a call or getting a dial tone and being able to make a call. I would guess that we are a bit older and maybe that makes the difference. Most of our peers are from the POTS world, and that's one of the reasons I have been unable to interest them in VOIP. My world was telephony and electronics, so I fall outside that box.

The other interesting thing you mentioned that your wife was hearing on call waiting, is exactly what I had just updated in a ticket to support.
As with modern call waiting, you will get some sort of ring splash or tone to indicate a call wanting to come in, but the constant ringing you and I hear doesn't sound normal. I have the GS286 and before they just upgraded the firmware, the announce slpash continued throughout the entire time the caller stayed on line, making it difficult to continue the call. Since the upgrade, I now get exactly what your wife heard.
I know support has been in touch with GS, waiting for a fix.
I have an SPA2102 that I have programed up for a backup, but haven't tried it to see if the same situation exists...

[NY Tel Guy]

The other interesting thing you mentioned that your wife was hearing on call waiting, is exactly what I had just updated in a ticket to support.
As with modern call waiting, you will get some sort of ring splash or tone to indicate a call wanting to come in, but the constant ringing you and I hear doesn't sound normal. I have the GS286 and before they just upgraded the firmware, the announce slpash continued throughout the entire time the caller stayed on line, making it difficult to continue the call. Since the upgrade, I now get exactly what your wife heard.
I know support has been in touch with GS, waiting for a fix.
I have an SPA2102 that I have programed up for a backup, but haven't tried it to see if the same situation exists...

I'm going to test my line now for call waiting with the Grandstream and see what happens. Full report in a few minutes.

EDIT: OK test complete. When engaged in a call, the call waiting tone in the POTS world comes in initially upon the first ring.
It then repeats a few seconds later - probably timed with the second ring cycle.

With my Grandstream (VoIPo provided) adapter - it appears that the initial tone works fine and is a combination of call waiting tone and screeching data tone (happens so the caller ID info can be passed to the display device on your phone). The difference here is that with the beginning of each ring cadence, it gives the caller that double beep with every ring. The switch parameter that controls the number of times you get a call waiting tone needs to be adjusted so it only repeats once after the initial tone.

I could see where it gets annoying. Also, to answer the waiting call, flashing the switchook answers call number 2 and places call number 1 on hold. This worked twice but it later dropped the 1st call for no good reason.

This would need to be fixed pre-launch.

[burris]

I'm going to test my line now for call waiting with the Grandstream and see what happens. Full report in a few minutes.

EDIT: OK test complete. When engaged in a call, the call waiting tone in the POTS world comes in initially upon the first ring.
It then repeats a few seconds later - probably timed with the second ring cycle.

With my Grandstream (VoIPo provided) adapter - it appears that the initial tone works fine and is a combination of call waiting tone and screeching data tone (happens so the caller ID info can be passed to the display device on your phone). The difference here is that with the beginning of each ring cadence, it gives the caller that double beep with every ring. The switch parameter that controls the number of times you get a call waiting tone needs to be adjusted so it only repeats once after the initial tone.

I could see where it gets annoying. Also, to answer the waiting call, flashing the switchook answers call number 2 and places call number 1 on hold. This worked twice but it later dropped the 1st call for no good reason.

This would need to be fixed pre-launch.

Glad you reminded me about the switchook flash.

My wife has this problem at times. Perhaps the timing of the flash needs to be adjusted.

[NY Tel Guy]

I would have thought that also but I was using a phone that has a built in flash button which is pre-timed so the flash time probably needs to be lengthened so it does not cut off the first call.

[christcorp]

Thanks for verifying such things guys. To be honest, I didn't know how the call waiting was set up with voipo, because rarely has anyone called us on the voipo beta number. So it's not a feature we used much. Now that it's our permanent line on voipo, it's a lot more possible.

My wife is definitely not the techno-geek type. She is not going to get into many of the advanced options. BUT, I think she will use the basic features like call waiting; 3 way calling; and call forwarding. Again; if there's an instructions or FAQ that will be posted for the "New" customers, and it's something we can have our "Not so techno-oriented" wives/husbands/etc... play with to test understandability, I think it would be useful. Later... Mike....

[VOIPoTim]

Just to confirm, there is an issue with Call Waiting playing the ringing tones vs behaving in the typical way. We're working with GS on this and will keep everyone updated. This looks like it will result in additional firmware fixes from them.

[scott2020]

Just to confirm, there is an issue with Call Waiting playing the ringing tones vs behaving in the typical way. We're working with GS on this and will keep everyone updated. This looks like it will result in additional firmware fixes from them.

Hi
I wanted to ask if GS has any update on this? On the GS unit I have, we still hear the outgoing call ringing tones instead of the typical call waiting single beep. Grandma was babysitting last night and was thoroughly confused on that one!

Scott

[VOIPoTim]

Hi
I wanted to ask if GS has any update on this? On the GS unit I have, we still hear the outgoing call ringing tones instead of the typical call waiting single beep. Grandma was babysitting last night and was thoroughly confused on that one!

Scott

Not yet, unfortunately.

[varaonaid]

OK, I feel kinda stupid, but I didn't think that call waiting was available yet on VOIPo yet. Glad to know it is.

Having said that, how do I disable it? DH (and I) both really dislike CW so I'd rather go ahead and make sure it's disabled.