Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with system and phone

I need a certain type of phone system

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:07:58 -0800

Is there a system/business/company out there that has the following phone system setup: (I'm asking this anonymously since I don't want some business associates to know.)

I'm trying to find out if the following type of system exists:
- Will let me dial in and "wait" on the line to receive calls
- Has an "unlimited" (virtually) supply of numbers that other people can call and use to talk to me

So, for example, let's say that I want to call a number, for example 555-555-1110, wait on the line and have person A call me on number 555-555-1111, then person B call me on number 555-555-1112, then person C call me on number 555-555-1113, etc ad nausem, and each number will "forward" to me with me staying on the line. (I don't need to talk to all of them at the same time, so it's not a conference line.) The numbers don't have to be sequential; the process is all that matters.

Ultra mega bonus points if there's something like this setup for free, regardless of whether it's meant to be used like this or not.

Does a system like this exist? Sorry if the question is weird, but I can't go into too much detail without breaking my anon cover. :)

Simple tutorial on setting up a PBX?

yellowbkpk — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 19:01:06 -0800

Where can I find information on setting up a phone system for a small business? It seems that most of my Google searches return spam or "we want your money!" links, so I'm asking the hive mind:

I'm helping a friend research a PBX system for his small business. There are two analog lines coming in to the office, and we'd like to have 5-7 extensions within the office. Voicemail, conference calls, and faxing (from a fax machine) capability would be very nice, too.

Also, we'd like to use analog telephones on the extensions if possible.

Where can I find a nice, concise tutorial on setting up a PBX system that routes analog phone calls? Using asterisk would be nice, but ease of setup and maintenance are pretty important.

For the asterisk solution, what hardware is needed to interface with the phone lines?

Thanks!

Origin of a drastically false assumption about actual alarm system status?

Quarter Pincher — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:55:23 -0800

Where does the idea come from that an alarm company can actually tell whether the system actually is armed? I've worked for an alarm system monitoring company for 6 years. In all my experience, there's only been one single system (that 98% of customers do NOT have) that a dispatcher can actually go into right that moment and determine whether the system is armed or not. Very very few people have this system, yet it is "common knowledge" that alarm companies are able to do this, despite being absolutely untrue. Where does the idea come from that alarm companies can tell? Movies?

On all the rest of the systems, the status is only determined by the signals the central station has received in the past even if that was moments ago. There is no way to actually tell if the system is actually armed right this second. If there is a severed connection, such as a clipped phone line (with no radio-based backup)(among thousands of other possibilities), the system very well could be disarmed and we simply wouldn't know. The fact that an alarm company says "the system is armed" is purely a guess providing for an absurd number of assumptions such as the phones being in proper order, etc.

We've had so many cases of people simply failing to hang up their phone properly that prevented the alarm signal from reaching us (because it couldn't dial out), that when we tell them "it isn't armed" they go back to check to discover that it really is armed (and thus get mad at us), we've had to resort to "we show it is not armed" or "the building may not be armed."

Every time we explain why we only "show" that it isn't armed or why it "may not" be, it's like they're brand new every time, and to a lot of people we have to explain it multiple times, as if the "we actually know" assumption is the automatic default.

Or is this simply not the case at other alarm company central stations?

How do I do well on my phone interview?

drdevice — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 18:40:23 -0800

I have my first phone interview (and third job interview ever) for a sysadmin job on Friday, and I'm looking for some advice. I've just graduated from a university with a B.S. in Computer Science after working for about a year and a half as a student system administrator for a department at the university. I applied for a Linux System Administrator position at a fairly small nearby company, and just got a call to set up a phone interview for Friday. I'm pretty excited, but I've never had a phone interview before (or really any sort of serious interview for a job), so I'm also pretty nervous.

The job requires experience with Redhat, Debian, and Slackware, scripting languages like python, perl, and php, and other common system administration things (backups, etc). It's an entry-level position (one year of experience required), and will be mostly telecommuting.

I've looked through previous posts about phone interviews (which were helpful), but I was hoping for some advice specific to an IT job interview. What can I expect from a phone interview for a position like this? Are there things I should do to prepare for it?

DIY phone installation

Doofus Magoo — Fri, 04 May 2007 11:15:31 -0800

Can installing a multi-line phone system be a DIY project? Our office will be moving in the coming months, and I'm responsible for getting us wired up. The ideal solution would be to throw a large wad of cash at a vendor to come run phone wires from the building's demarcation point to each of our offices and install a multi-line phone system that's adequate for three workers. Mainly because of the cost, that's not an option.

We will have three phone lines, one fax line and a DSL line. Our local telco is going to connect the lines to the new building's demarcation point, but from there it's our responsibility. I know a decent bit about networking (and in fact, we're going to run the data cables ourselves), and I can't help but think that running phone lines ourselves would save a ton of cash. Unfortunately, I'm clueless even about the terminology to use, which makes it hard to hunt down any useful information.

Surely what I envision can't be that difficult. All we'd need is to run five phone lines (RJ11?) from the five designated ports at the demarcation point to our office, right? Then in our office do we simply plug the three voice lines into a "router" that handles the incoming phone calls, and then run mult-line phone cables (RJ25?) from the "router" to each phone?

What is the "router" called in the above analogy? Is the $1000 cost I'm seeing for these things normal, or am I looking at the wrong things? Are there any details I'm missing that would make this more complicated than running data cables? Finally, can anyone identify any resources that would help me do this (or even help me figure out if I can do it myself)?