provided by Star2Billing S.L.

Hi everyone and thanks in advance for looking at this post.
Basically what i need is to simulate a ring when the AGI is processing the call.
After a call has been place there is a long pause before the call actually gets connected to the destination network.
Is there a way to work around this?
Regards,
David

Include an 'r' in your dial string to generate false alerting as soon as the outbound leg is attempted.

If you really need the ringing tone whilst the AGI is processing then add a 'Ringing()' to your extensions.conf before the 'DeadAGI()', but you'll only notice the difference if you are not answering the call in a2billing.conf.

Thanks for you reply.
i have the 'r' option under Asterisk Dial Options set as you suggested.
I have set answer_call = no and added the ringing command before the DeadAGI() statement and i still have no luck on getting the ringing tone while the AGI processes the call.

Executing Wait("SIP/0319475766-09dbc8b8", "1") in new stack
-- Executing BackGround("SIP/0319475766-09dbc8b8", "pls-wait-connect-call") in new stack
-- Playing 'pls-wait-connect-call' (language 'en')
-- Executing Ringing("SIP/0319475766-09dbc8b8", "") in new stack
-- Executing DeadAGI("SIP/0319475766-09dbc8b8", "a2billing.php|1") in new stack
-- Launched AGI Script /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/a2billing.php
a2billing.php|1: A2Billing AGI internal configuration:
a2billing.php|1: Array

Any other ideas on how to get the ringing tone while the AGI is processing the call?

I think your Asterisk is answering the call so it can play "pls-wait-while-connect-call". It makes no sense to indicate Alerting after having already answered the call.

i added that in order to let the client know that something was happening after the call has been dialed.
The aim is to get rid of that recording and add the ringing instead.
The time between the client finishes dialing the number and the AGI to process the dialing script is about 6 to 7 seconds. Sometimes clients think nothing is happening and they hangup and try again.

So did you try it without the voice prompt? As I said it can't signal alerting if the call has already been answered, and to stream audio you must answer the call (early media on ISDN excepted).

It shouldn't take A2B anywhere near 6-7 seconds to process the call. Are you sure this PDD is not caused by your carrier?

i took the (pls-wait-connect-call) and i added the ringing() before the AGI command and still no luck.
basically when i please an outbound call and while logged into my asterisk server, i can see the call being processed by the AGI and while this is happening the only thing i can hear on the handest is silence for around 6-7 seconds.
I also tried making the same call through one of my freePBX extensions and the silence time reduces to only 2 seconds.
Thanks again stavros for all your help.

I think you need to investigate why the AGI is running so slowly then. For me the AGI takes less than 1 second.

You can easily gain 1 second back by removing that Wait(1) you have in the dialplan.