Yeah...that's what a figured.

How about the following scenario:

Attach an unused spa400 port to the 'telephone' port of the answering machine.  Set up a dial sequence such as *78 to dial out that SPA400 line...that would emulate picking up an extension attached to the answer machine, cut out the answering machine recording, and connect any PBX phone to the in-progress call right?  If I got that right, is there something special I would need to do for the *78 to work without the SPA400 ever getting a dial-tone when it goes off-hook? -Don

Hi Don,

The SPA400 provides 4 FXO ports which can only be connected to PSTN lines. An answering machine can only be connected to FXS ports.

The thing to keep in mind is that analog devices do not provide ready access like SIP devices do.

Perhaps someone else in the community can offer comment and share how they accomplish what you're trying to do.

Regards,

Patrick

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I don't believe I sufficiently described the scenario.  The answer machine has a port to connect to the typical wall jack for the phone line.  It also has a jack to which you can connect an analog phone.  If the answering machine is recording a message, and the phone attached is picked up, it will stop recording the message and simply pass the connection thru from the phone to the line attached to the answering machine.  The answering machine will also stop recording if another analog phone sharing the same line is picked up (perhaps on a splitter on the phone jack the answering machine is plugged into).

WIth this logic, it would seem that if I could get the spa400 to go offhook and connect as if it had gone off hook, detected dial tone, dialed, and completed the call, then i should be able to get any voip extension to pick up the call from the answering machine.  Does that make sense?  What configuration on the spa400 would be required so it does not a) require dial tone to go offhook, and b) does not consider the line unavailable given the status of the linen via voltage will show the line as off-hook already?  Thanks -Don

Hi Don,

The short answer is that the SPA400 is only supported to work with the SPA9000.

The features that you are attempting to enable, while theoretically possible, are certainly going to require lots of playing around on your behalf.

The only suggestion I can offer is that you refer to the SPA400 Admin Guide which describes the configurable parameters of the SPA400.

As an aside, the listen-in on inbound calls is available through GoogleVoice which is free and can be configured to work with the SPA phones.

Regards,

Patrick

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