[steford]

Just finished setting up these phones and they are very nice indeed including the web interface. I saved the Dialing Plans until last as I thought it would take time to set up routing - but what a disappointment! There are virtually no useful features to speak of apart from "block". I expected to be able to prefix number patterns with predial numbers (eg 3rd party telcos, provider access codes) and maybe even set the time of day when this happens for low cost routing. Siemens seem to have half implemented this in the Call-by-call feature which essentially gets 1 number from a phonebook and forces the user to add the required number after it - something I can do on my ancient and cheap previous phone - going back to individual phonebook entries with the predial number+pause+international number+hash seems to be the only easy way to dial these still - the way I've been doing it for years and annoying when providers change and a shame to have to do this on this phone when the odd time I might want to call over VoIP (which will now need another phonebook entry)

Am I missing something or is this a terrible oversight on the part of Siemens?

Ta for any help or workarounds.

[gblades]

Prefix numbers are only really used when you wish to use a different provider when making calls over your land line. I guess they thought as you have a voip phone it is because you intend to use voip for the cheap calls and not use alternative land line suppliers.
Their dialing plans enable you to specify phone numbers and then choose which connection should be used. So for example by default you can use your land line but gor all calls starting with 00 (i.e international) you can choose one of your voip lines from the drop down box.

I would be nice if they has the feature to strip out initial digits from the dialed number and be able to insert others at a start as for example some providers want the international country code first and wont like the 00 at the start. Perhaps you could contact them and suggest the feature as the firmware does get updated a few times a year.

[steford]

Originally Posted by gblades

Prefix numbers are only really used when you wish to use a different provider when making calls over your land line. I guess they thought as you have a voip phone it is because you intend to use voip for the cheap calls and not use alternative land line suppliers.
Their dialing plans enable you to specify phone numbers and then choose which connection should be used. So for example by default you can use your land line but gor all calls starting with 00 (i.e international) you can choose one of your voip lines from the drop down box.

I would be nice if they has the feature to strip out initial digits from the dialed number and be able to insert others at a start as for example some providers want the international country code first and wont like the 00 at the start. Perhaps you could contact them and suggest the feature as the firmware does get updated a few times a year.

The 0844 providers still work out cheaper to Japan (0.5p) without a monthly commitment so I see the majority of my dialing being done that way. Having several VoIP carriers could work out expensive and I'm not sure it's the best/only routing method.

I have emailed Siemens about it and surprisingly they have said they'll pass onto developers hopefully to be included in future firmwares. Until then it's back to the old method.

Cheers.