Simultaneous Ring Feature (Alpha)

[fisamo]

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]

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]

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]

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.