voice mail issue when internet outrage

[GiantBill]

Today I experienced the incident, my home power outraged which means my internet is down.
I tried to call my FPL number, it gave me busy signal, and can not left the message.

So I call FPL tech support, they told me that if neither ata online nor software online, all the functionalities are down.

However after 5mins, I called my FPL again, this time it can let you leave the voice mail.

So i got totally confused, can anyone tell me how FPL handles the internet outrage, can voice mail work during
internet outrage?

Thanks

Bill

[MichaelVoIP]

Bill,

In my Linksys SPA2102 ATA there is a registration setting called "Register Expires:". The way VoIP works is that the ATA needs to register with the VoIP servers regularly. Once a registration attempt is successful, the VoIP servers will assume the ATA is up-and-running and will try to direct all calls to the ATA. If the ATA goes down during a registration period, the call routing will be unsuccessful and the caller will hear a reorder tone (fast busy signal).

This will happen until the next registration is due. If this one is successful, the calls will go through. If not - like when the ATA is turned off - the VoIP servers will assume the ATA is disconnected and will forward the calls directly to the voice mail.

It is up to you to decide the optimal value for the "Register Expires:". FPL recommends something in the range of 180 to 3600 seconds. (The default for the SPA2102 was 3600 seconds.) I set this value to 300 seconds (5 minutes). Remember that longer values will increase the time when you cannot get voice mail messages during a power outage, whereas shorter message will bombard the VoIP provider servers with registration requests (the VoIP provider might not like this).

A similar phenomenon happens if your Internet provider changes your dynamically assigned IP address, which typically happens once in a while, especially for DSL Internet.

Michael

[GiantBill]

bump! bump! bump!

[FONGO_steve]

When your line is disconnected all calls will go straight to voicemail. If your line is disconnected suddenly and doesn't properly de-register with our server then there may be a short period of time where our server tries to send calls to your user agent before realising it's registration has dropped.

[tbrummell]

Instead of reorder tone, when the server fails to get an answer to the 100 Invite request, they should divert to voicemail, but it doesn't. It's a simple function of most providers but FPL doesn't support it. They wait until the registration expires (most likely up to 3600 seconds) before setting up the divert condition. If you need for this to happen as soon as the connection is down, you would need to switch to a different VOIP provider. There are many that support this properly.

[GiantBill]

thanks lot everyone.

I will reset Register Expiration to 300.

[TheHardy]

Instead of reorder tone, when the server fails to get an answer to the 100 Invite request, they should divert to voicemail, but it doesn't. It's a simple function of most providers but FPL doesn't support it. They wait until the registration expires (most likely up to 3600 seconds) before setting up the divert condition. If you need for this to happen as soon as the connection is down, you would need to switch to a different VOIP provider. There are many that support this properly.

I am wondering if this is a DELIBERATE "feature" on Fongo/FPL's part, or whether it was just slack coding that has yet to be fixed ... we know that they are a little slow to fix certain coding issues (granted they do at times have Bigger Fish to Fry).

It would be nice of they took this suggestion of re-coding and a function-enhancement to heart and put it on their ever-growing list of things to tackle... maybe along with the caller ID issue in the legacy softphone (FPL) ...