Re: flexfax: Direct Inward Dial

["Jay R. Ashworth" <jra@baylink.com>]

On Mon, Jul 19, 1999 at 11:30:55AM -0400, KAbraha454@aol.com wrote:
> We emulate DID trunks at work with a Siemens (Rolm) PBX (Software rev 
> 9006.2). What we have is a T1 which supports 300 DNIS (DID) numbers 
> (extensions).

Well, DNIS is an INWATS technology, and DID a local trunking one, but
they're close enough in spirit, if not in implementation.

>               Basically, I assign one or more of these DNIS numbers as a 
> published FAX number supported by an analog station card (SLMA).

So, you tell the PBX, "when you get a call on a trunk for _this_ DID
number, route it to this analog station card"?

>                                                                   The PBX 
> programming to do this is a 4 step process. By performing these 4 programming 
> steps, the PBX will outpulse the DTMF tones associated with the dialed DNIS 
> number.

The PBX tells the analog port _which_ of a collection of DID numbers
originated the call?  I've never heard of a PBX that could do that.

>          From there, the attached modem on this analog card port would pass 
> along these digits to the fax software, which would then be responsible for 
> routing the fax call to the proper destination. I know this software routing 
> works with Brooktrout modems with Rightfax/Omtool w/MS NT4.0, but I don't 
> know which hylaFAX supported modems can pass along these DTMF digits and 
> whether there's destination routing within hylaFAX to control the fax 
> delivery destination based on the received/passed along DTMF digits.

Ok, assuming I correctly understood what the Rolm is doing, the
question becomes "can HylaFax somehow capture the DTMF
[assuming it _is_ DTMF -- the customary thing to send DID as (if it's
not _dialpulses_) is _MF_; quite another matter]
addressing and use that to route a fax.

Assuming that it is DTMF, whether the modem can capture it depends on
when it's sent.  If it's sent _before_ the line is answered, ie. while
it's still ringing, the modem probably can't hear it.  It's worth
noting here that on the trunk side, DID trunks sieze in one direction
at a time, (they're usually 4-wire, as I understand it), for precisely
this reason.  If it's sent after, it will depend on the modem... but it
would probably require re-writing the driver front end in faxgetty.

The optimal solution here that I can think of would be if the PBX was
capable of generating CNID tones; that's the easiest thing for the
modem to read and HF knows what to do with them... approximately.

> I would be *VERY* interested to know if there are modems for hylaFAX which 
> would do this (external modems preferred) and if the hylaFAX software had 
> this routing capability as well.

Roughly, 'good luck'.  :-)

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra@baylink.com
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