wife wants "answering machine flashing light" for

Posts: 54 · Full Forum Member Joined: May 08, 2006 Posts: 54

Maybe this is the reason we are not seeing the orange blinking light on the VT2442. Even though the manual says the light will blink orange when you have a voice mail, those of us with the Vt2442 are not seeing it. Maybe Vonage is not sending out the proper signal that you speak of.

Bob

Posts: 135 · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 12:45 pm Post subject:

Vonage does send the signal required by the Voicemail indicators. I tried it with a Uniden cordless phone and it worked fine.

I should note that when I tried it I was using a Uniden system that does not have an answering macine. In this case the Voicemail indicator was activated by the signal from my PAP2.

I have since bought a new Uniden set that included three new handsets and a base station with an integrated answering machine. I upgraded because I needed a few more handsets and also because this base station includes a battery backup to keep my cordless phones working in a power outage. I keep the answering machine on my Uniden phone disabled and I use the Vonage Voicemail.

The problem is that when the base station has a answering machine, it controls the Voicemail indicator on the handsets, even if the phone answering machine is disabled. It took a bit of reading on the Uniden site to figure that out. If I want the indicator on the phones to work I have to use the old Uniden base station or stop using the Vonage voicemail.

Posts: 476 · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 12:50 pm Post subject:

Buy some of these and go retro!

Posts: 1424 · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 1:08 pm Post subject:

ram1220 wrote:

Maybe this is the reason we are not seeing the orange blinking light on the VT2442. Even though the manual says the light will blink orange when you have a voice mail, those of us with the Vt2442 are not seeing it. Maybe Vonage is not sending out the proper signal that you speak of.

Bob

That signal (FSK MWI) would be generated by the adapter (in your case VT2442) from a SIP message sent by Vonage. That, unfortunately renders your question a bit circular.

It is doubtful that the VT2442 would be dependent on the message waiting signal that it is supposed to generate to turn on the flashing light.

If the adapter is generating a stutter dial tone then it is receiving a message waiting SIP message from Vonage.

The Message Waiting Indicator Wikipedia Page has some interesting information on how this works, including an interesting tidbit on how caller-id boxes check the dial tone for message waiting.

A version of the SIP Message Waiting indication is documented in RFC 3824. I have not captured the packets to determine exactly what Vonage is using to indicate message waiting, but rest assured, if you have a stutter dial tone your adapter is receiving a message waiting message.

Posts: 54 · Full Forum Member Joined: May 08, 2006 Posts: 54

Thanks for clearing that up. It doesn't make a difference to me if there is a light or not on the VT2442. I have voice mail turned off and I use an answering machine for messages. For me it's just easier. But I know there are a few others here in this forum that have wondered why the orange light on the VT2442 doesn't work.

Bob