[gabrielinux]

Hello, there!

I'm totally new to asterisk and VoIP, but I'm trying out Broadvoice because it's so cheap. Anyway, I've noticed that the call reports on broadvoice's portal tell me not only what number I received a call from, but also what number that person dialed. That might sound plain stupid, since the number they dialed will obviously be mine. Well, not exactly. Here's where the cool part comes.

In order to have 2 mailboxes (one for an office number, one for my personal home number), I would have to pay at least $18 to broadvoice -- $10 for the basic service on one line, and $8 for the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) program on a second line. But it could be done for only $12 instead of $18 if this feature is used. For instance, instead of connecting my Sipura SPA-2100 ATA directly to BrodVoice's SIP proxies, I could connect it to asterisk, and let asterisk handle the incoming and outgoing calls. So, I would contract the basic, $10 service, plus an additional virtual number for $2 (as opposed to an additional line). My question is, how can I make asterisk look at what number the person calling me dialed, just like the log in BroadVoice's portal shows? Because if I can detect which one of the two numbers they're calling, then I can redirect to different mailboxes if the phone in the SPA-2100 doesn't answer the call.

That might sound like cheap skate trickery, but do the math: if you want more than 3 numbers, then you really start saving $$$. Why in the world would I want to do that, though? Well, that's because I want to have a special mailbox just for my girlfriend, so I can leave her cool and sexy VM prompts; also a different mailbox for my eBay customers, so they hear a proffessional VM prompt; also, a different voice mail prompt for my friends, and a different one for my family. Since they don't always call me from their cell/home phones (could use public phones or block caller ID), then knowing which number they called would be much more helpful. That would all together add up to only $18/month, a savings of $24 for using the minutes of only one phone line with different virtual numbers. Now, I don't exactly want to use it as described, but that's a good example/application. So, how do I start to configure asterisk for this? I have it installed and running with Debian GNU/Linux on hppa (pa-risc) with a 2.6.10x kernel, and I do have a Sipura SPA-2100, and a broadvoice account with two virtual numbers in addition to my primary number. I've reading lots of documents, but this is way over my head -- especially the recognizing of what number people called, but if broadvoice can do it, then so can I!!!

[PhoneBoy]

BroadVoice has access to the originating end of the call, and can thus determine who called what line. By the time you receive the call, you get something directed to your SIP URL (e.g. yournumber@sip.broadvoice.com where yournumber is your primary telephone number). Unless they send you the number they dialed somehow, then there's really no way for you to detect what number you got called on.