"Anonymous Call Rejection"

Posts: 30 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Feb 01, 2005 Posts: 30

Ditto on the last... features are not (for any phone system) at the phone end, except for things like the phone directory on some cordless phones.

I can't how the ATA would ever care: you get a call, it doesn't furnish CLID, and the switch blocks it because you have ACR on. It never gets to your end at all.

What's strange is that Vonage isn't offering things like this: the (phone) switch at their end should have the same capabilities of other major switches, and you'd think they'd *like* ACR: Since we don't pay for inbound calls, these would be calls that the V network wouldn't have to carry, saving their network/switches packets and call processing.

Posts: 93 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Feb 01, 2005 Posts: 93

Thank god Vonage does not have ACR. We are having problem with incoming call caller ID in chicago area. Vonage enginner are working to fix this problem.

How are you doing Vonage engineers ?????

Posts: 9 · Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 11:36 am Post subject:

Actually, using common sense you would think that it's not ATA dependant but it actually is to a point. I'm a Lucent 5ESS switch tech for SWBell and although I am just starting to understand all of this Voip stuff the Vonage tech was correct. I can give you a specific example using the Repeat Dialing (#5) feature:
On the Cisco and Motorola ATA's, when you get a busy signal you simply DTMF (touch tone) #5 on top of the busy signal and it would automatically beep and then you can hang up. HOWEVER, on the Linksys router you can not touchtone on top of a busy signal, you must hang up, pick back up and then dial #5.
I questioned him about the ATA versus the Switch on features. The ATA must know about the feature codes then pass them on to the Voip switch.
Apparently they have all of the feature codes programmed in every router (*69, #5, #90, *70, etc etc etc). They then translate this into data that the Voip switch understands. Totally totally different then an POTS loop-start 5ESS (regular analog) line.

Posts: 336 · Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 12:06 am Post subject:

I believe that this is correct. The magical little ATA boxes do a lot more than one might think! They are the guts of the Voip phone system. They may not provide call routing capabilities, but they do control all of the features on your telephone.

I currently have the Motorola ATA. I guess this means I would not qualify for the Call Privacy feature. That is really too bad because the quality of the voice calls through the Motorola is so good. I am afraid to switch ATAs because I have never once had a problem with this device. It is quite the gadget. How strange that Motorola could not get Call Privacy/Rejection to work. They seem progressive enough, they should be smart enough to do this.

Posts: 9 · Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 1:26 am Post subject: Motorola vs Linksys ATA's

DarKev wrote:

I believe that this is correct. The magical little ATA boxes do a lot more than one might think! They are the guts of the Voip phone system. They may not provide call routing capabilities, but they do control all of the features on your telephone.

I currently have the Motorola ATA. I guess this means I would not qualify for the Call Privacy feature. That really **** because the quality of the voice calls through the Motorola is so good. I am afraid to switch ATAs because I have never once had a problem with this device. It is quite the gadget. How strange that Motorola could not get Call Privacy/Rejection to work. They seem progressive enough, they should be smart enough to do this.

I would keep the Motorola ATA. Motorola might put out a firmware release for their ATA, who knows. I did, however, call Linksys today about a non-related router issue (non-VOip). At the end of the call I asked if I could speak to a tech about their Voip ATA that they build for Vonage...he surprisingly transferred me. I told him about what the Vonage tech told me about the calling features being built into the ATA and some being disabled at the moment (Call Anon Reject). He confirmed that all of those features are in the ATA and are controlled by the Voip Telco. He also CONFIRMED that the Linksys is ready to go for Call Anon Reject and that Vonage is not using it yet because they don't want to advertise a feature that only works on one of their 3 routers they have in the field. For those of you in the telco industry, an ATA could be compared to a subsidary switch off of the main 5ESS or Nortel Switch. In otherwords, those ATA's are powerful little boogers Smile

Posts: 227 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Dec 10, 2004 Posts: 227

bcollinscrt wrote:

DarKev wrote:

I believe that this is correct. The magical little ATA boxes do a lot more than one might think! They are the guts of the Voip phone system. They may not provide call routing capabilities, but they do control all of the features on your telephone.

I currently have the Motorola ATA. I guess this means I would not qualify for the Call Privacy feature. That really **** because the quality of the voice calls through the Motorola is so good. I am afraid to switch ATAs because I have never once had a problem with this device. It is quite the gadget. How strange that Motorola could not get Call Privacy/Rejection to work. They seem progressive enough, they should be smart enough to do this.

I would keep the Motorola ATA. Motorola might put out a firmware release for their ATA, who knows. I did, however, call Linksys today about a non-related router issue (non-VOip). At the end of the call I asked if I could speak to a tech about their Voip ATA that they build for Vonage...he surprisingly transferred me. I told him about what the Vonage tech told me about the calling features being built into the ATA and some being disabled at the moment (Call Anon Reject). He confirmed that all of those features are in the ATA and are controlled by the Voip Telco. He also CONFIRMED that the Linksys is ready to go for Call Anon Reject and that Vonage is not using it yet because they don't want to advertise a feature that only works on one of their 3 routers they have in the field. For those of you in the telco industry, an ATA could be compared to a subsidary switch off of the main 5ESS or Nortel Switch. In otherwords, those ATA's are powerful little boogers Smile

Thank you for that information!

Posts: 30 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Feb 01, 2005 Posts: 30

Okay, I stand corrected! Smile

Didn't know/expect that the adapters were that smart.

If the Linksys has all those features, I wish V would turn them on and change the feature list to say 'if you have a Linksys, these may be available'.

But I can definitely see why they wouldn't want to open the floodgates for ten of thousands of requests to swap out the adapters! Smile

Posts: 49 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jan 28, 2005 Posts: 49

kenn10 wrote:

Maybe I'm missing something but I don't understand why the type of ATA being used has anything to do with annonymous call rejection. It should be a case of the central switching fabric examining the call data and deciding whether to reject the call or not. Voicepulse has had this for ages and it works beautifully.

The whole idea of softswitches is that the central intelligence of the core switching element makes the decisions. The media gateways and adapters just provide the talk path. Sounds like more stalling tactics to me.

I dunno. My ISDN Terminal adapter allows me to do anonymous call blocking without having to add any special service from the phone company. I can even do wildcard blocking of numbers.

I don't see why the Voip TA can't do the same. It's a great feature.

Posts: 336 · Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 5:56 pm Post subject: Re: Motorola vs Linksys ATA's

bcollinscrt wrote:

At the end of the call I asked if I could speak to a tech about their Voip ATA that they build for Vonage...he surprisingly transferred me. I told him about what the Vonage tech told me about the calling features being built into the ATA and some being disabled at the moment (Call Anon Reject). He confirmed that all of those features are in the ATA and are controlled by the Voip Telco. He also CONFIRMED that the Linksys is ready to go for Call Anon Reject and that Vonage is not using it yet because they don't want to advertise a feature that only works on one of their 3 routers they have in the field. <snip>

So what model number is on your LinkSys ATA? It would be interesting to know how Vonage is ever going to offer these other features unless Motorola can fix the boxes to do this, or unless they exchange the Motorola ATAs for the new LinkSys model.