This article was written by Don VanSyckel, the club president, as a part of "The President's Pen". This article appeared in the January 2020 WYSIWYG newsletter.
VOIP Phones part 4
by Don VanSyckel
The last couple of months I wrote about the Voice Over IP (VOIP) phone system we use at our home. I continued because I had received several questions about. So I will continue this month with more detail about some of the features. These features are all included in the base monthly charge.
- Caller ID and caller ID with name are available - The advantage speaks for itself.
- Answering machine function is on their hardware - This feature is handy and can be reached from anywhere. If one caller isn't done with their message, a second caller doesn't get a busy misleading them into thinking you're actually home, on your phone, and ignoring their call.
- Log of in bound and out bound calls - This log can be viewed on line or downloaded in a CSV format (loadable into a spreadsheet). I save the logs on a quarterly basis and they come in handy occasionally.
- Up loadable address book - This phone book is available on line and names in this can be used by the caller ID with name feature to substitute the name in the phone book into the caller ID with name.
- Detect "anonymous" calls - Once an anonymous call (no call ID info) is detected you select one of nine methods of handling the call. I have these set to a busy signal; let those telemarketer waste their resources calling over and over again. Other choices include an error message, a disconnect message, forwarding, and voice mail. Any of these do not ring your phone.
- Any specific calling phone number can have specific handling instructions - Handling includes do busy signal, do out of service, and go directly to the answering machine. Think about the possibilities, set that annoying caller to do busy signal so they try over and over again and your phone never rings.
- Call filtering - The caller is challenged to press a random number 0 - 9, not always the same. Robo calls don't make it through this, yet all people calls go through after pressing the spoken number.
- Call filtering enhanced - You can specify that phone numbers in your address book are put through immediately and not challenged to press a number. So anyone in your address book go right through.
- Call forwarding - This feature can be set up a couple ways. First you can call forward every call to another phone number such as during vacation you can forward to your cell phone. Another method is to call forward on no answer after X rings. This give you the opportunity to answer your phone when you're home and have calls go to your cell phone when out of the house.
- Three way calling - Talk with two other people on their two phones together at one time. You do the connecting so it's you making two calls simultaneously.
- Quiet time - Schedule calls to not ring the phone and go right to the answering machine. Can be handy if you don't want to be disturbed. Best when scheduled in an on going manner as opposed to a few hours here and a few hours there. This feature can be prioritized with other call treatments such as doing this after the anonymous calls are handled.
- Email alerts - As specified for calls and/or voice messages. Whether your email is on your PC or your cell phone.
I do have an add on; not via Callcentric, it's hardware. I've added one UPS for the phone adapter, cable modem, and router which are co-located. This way when the power blinks the electronics don't have to reboot and reset. For instance if rebooting the router needs the cable modem to finish rebooting first. Then the phone adapter needs the router to finish rebooting before it does. So all in all, it's simpler to have the three of them on a UPS. I'm considered a UPS for the phone base unit. Since it's located in the kitchen I was challenged where to put a UPS because I don't want it on the kitchen counter. Since the phone base unit reboots quickly and has no dependencies on other electronics I decided a UPS wasn't needed.
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