FONGO Voicemail - disappointed

[godot2012]

I had an Internet outage this morning and when my home FONGO number was dialled the caller was sent a "busy" signal. I also discovered that under some circumstances like disconnecting power to my DSL modem or disconnecting the ATA from my router incoming callers will receive either
1. "dead silence";
2. "dead silence", followed by the busy signal;
3. instant busy signal or
3. a long explanation in french.

I am puzzled. I assumed that in situations when the called number is not available for any reason the FONGO voicemail would kick in. A notable and understandable exception would be a total Internet crash. I am certain there is available technology to make FONGO voicemail more useful to 'mask' at least some of the potential problems of VoIp phone service caused by reliance on 'home power' and the finickiness of the Internet.

I am still testing my home FONGO, but now I am hanging on to my Bell phone.

[Jake]

I had a few problems also this morning. They had a fairly large network failure from what I understand, and so non of their systems were working as they should have.

Normally you should find that callers would be sent to voicemail, but because of this network error anything could and did happen.

[TheHardy]

The "non-normal" feature (!) of the line randomly ringing BUSY is NOT a new issue and has popped up on several occasions, seemingly randomly and intermittantly. I have been with FPL for about a year now, and I get to hear a few times a month from someone that tried to call me (mainly to leave me a vmail, as they KNOW I am away from home) that they get a BUSY tone and no voicemail.

As I use the PC softphone, with the App _NOT_ loaded when I am not at home, the line is not "registered" or anything. No one is using it, and I do not have enough people that call me during the day where there would be a "call-collision" -- in any case, as it is VOIP, unless there is something asunder with the voicemail server, why on earth would anyone ever get a BUSY signal trying to reach me under these circumstances? Yet I still hear it a lot ... most people that ARE trying to get a hold of me will either try again or resort to email though.

Perhaps Fongo staff can comment on what would GENERATE a busy tone ... aside from call collisions ... for an outside caller to a NON-Follow-Me'd # ... ???

[tbrummell]

Easy to reproduce...

1. Unplug your device that connects you to the I'net (router/modem)
2. Call your number, you should get dead air/busy/re-order

Now, the why. Because your Internet connection died, the app/ATA did not un-register with the SIP Registrar. Because the Registrar thinks you are registered and still available at IP XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX, it sends the SIP invite there. It doesn't get a response, so it goes busy/re-order.
Now, should it go to voicemail? Yes. They are not handling that scenario very well. Once the registration timer expires (3600 seconds?), the call should then immediately go to the failover destination as the Registrar has no IP for your user, so no where to send the Invite.

[godot2012]

As far as I am concerned, assuming you have your voice mail (and/or call forward feature) enabled, the caller should never get a busy signal. Rather, if the call can not be completed after a pre-determined time the call should be directed to either call forward or to voice mail. With these features, unless the server is down, a call should never be lost.

[TheHardy]

Easy to reproduce...

1. Unplug your device that connects you to the I'net (router/modem)
2. Call your number, you should get dead air/busy/re-order

Now, the why. Because your Internet connection died, the app/ATA did not un-register with the SIP Registrar. Because the Registrar thinks you are registered and still available at IP XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX, it sends the SIP invite there. It doesn't get a response, so it goes busy/re-order.
Now, should it go to voicemail? Yes. They are not handling that scenario very well. Once the registration timer expires (3600 seconds?), the call should then immediately go to the failover destination as the Registrar has no IP for your user, so no where to send the Invite.

Your scenario does prove the failure of the system --- however, that is not the only way for it to get a busy signal. As I state, in my SIMPLE application, there are times when my softphone is not even loaded at all (I leave for work before 6:15am, and if I have even used it in the morning, I shut it down correctly!) I am away ... but a call comes in at 2pm and somehow gets a BUSY signal ... no activity on the account, etc .... how is this??? No conflicting incoming call ... ???

But yes, the entire infrastructure appears to leave a lot desired for even the most simple operations ... things seem to be falling apart (maybe they ARE only held together with baling wire and chewing gum???) left right and centre ....

[TheHardy]

As far as I am concerned, assuming you have your voice mail (and/or call forward feature) enabled, the caller should never get a busy signal. Rather, if the call can not be completed after a pre-determined time the call should be directed to either call forward or to voice mail. With these features, unless the server is down, a call should never be lost.

I agree -- in an ideal situation, this is how it should be set up ... the fallback in ANY case should always be the voicemail....

[godot2012]

Now that we identified the problem, and developed the solution, how do we get the folks at FONGO fix it?