[cincifly]

I'm starting to understand dial plans a bit and was wondering what was the logic behind this default dial plan in the Voxilla setup wizard:

([2-79]11<:@gw0>|xx.|*xx.|**xx.|<#1,:>xx.<:@gw1>|<#9,:>xx .<:@gw0>|<#9,:>*xx<:@gw0>)

It's the second, third and fourth elements that have me puzzled. According to the wizard:

2. An arbitrary number of digits, which will be routed out the Line 1 VoIP Provider configuration;
3. dial * then dial one or more digits (routed out Line 1 VoIP Provider);
4. dial ** then dial one or more digits (routed out Line 1 VoIP Provider);

Aren't #3 and #4 somewhat redundant? Why would I ever dial * or ** when I can just pick up the phone and dial to to through my Line 1 VOIP Provider. Furthermore, when I try it, (dial * or ** in front of my number), I get a fast busy. Doesn't seem to work. Am I interpreting these strings properly?

As for elements #5 and #6

5. dial #1 then dial one or more digits (routed out Gateway 1 Provider, which will be the same a the PSTN Line provider in our Wizard);
6. dial #9 then dial one or more digits (routed out PSTN Line);

#6 works fine. #5 seems redundant to #6 - just another way to route through the PSTN line. However, it doesn't work. Again I get a fast busy.

The last line:

7. Dial #9* then two digits (routed out PSTN Line, i.e. for star codes).

I don't understand the purpose of this at all.

Can anyone shed light? This will go a long way towards my understanding of dial plans.

[mberlant]

It seems that you don't understand star codes and what they do. A good example of a star code is *70, which will suppress Call Waiting for one call. The Dial Plan elements in the middle of the Dial Plan are for sending star codes to your Line 1 VoIP service provider. The latter one is for sending a star code to your PSTN Line service provider. They need to be separate Dial Plan elements because x only represents the digits 0-9 and not * or #.

Your final comment about not understanding why one would ever need to send a star code to the PSTN Line is understandable if you have a basic service line from your phone company and do not subscribe to any features that are controlled by star codes. I am among those people, so I have not included a provision for sending star codes to my PSTN line in my Dial Plan.

[PhoneBoy]

Not all do. The dial plan is "generic" to work with a large number of providers and a large number of circumstances. Some VoIP providers use * or ** to prefix calls. Not all do. If your provider doesn't use those codes, don't include them.

[cincifly]

Originally Posted by mberlant

It seems that you don't understand star codes and what they do. A good example of a star code is *70, which will suppress Call Waiting for one call. The Dial Plan elements in the middle of the Dial Plan are for sending star codes to your Line 1 VoIP service provider. The latter one is for sending a star code to your PSTN Line service provider. They need to be separate Dial Plan elements because x only represents the digits 0-9 and not * or #.

Your final comment about not understanding why one would ever need to send a star code to the PSTN Line is understandable if you have a basic service line from your phone company and do not subscribe to any features that are controlled by star codes. I am among those people, so I have not included a provision for sending star codes to my PSTN line in my Dial Plan.

Thanks. I've never used star codes on my telco line and my VOIP provider (vBuzzer) doesn't support them so that is why I never thought of them. Also, I did not know there are double (**) codes.

I removed them but I'm still having trouble with my dial plan. Gonna do some experimentation before I plead for help again.

[mberlant]

Experimentation is good, and in the VoIP world it is usually harmless.

By the way, ** codes are sometimes implemented by service providers as a way to give you extra services without reusing * codes that are already assigned by convention to other services. For example, *72 is commonly used to invoke "Call Forward - All". If your service provider decided to use *72 for "Retrieve Voice Mail", that would be very confusing, indeed.