[Freeswitch-users] How to call multi gateways for failover with early media?

[Kristian Kielhofner]

On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 11:12 PM, David Knell <dave at 3c.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Ah, well, that's where you're trying to change the way that things
> have been done for some decades.  Ringback has historically been
> generated close to the called party, which is why you hear different
> ringback if you call people in different countries.

  What's wrong with that?  Isn't that what we are all doing (or trying
to do), to some extent?

  International dialing very well may use different ringbacks but:

1)  How important is this, really?
2)  How much more complicated is adding at least the real potential for 180?

  Actually using 180 w/o SDP provides for enhanced call handing
functionality while only requiring (in many cases) one additional test
scenario.  Consider the current example (all 180s are actually 180s
w/o SDP and 183 is 183 w/ SDP):

Bridging a call to multiple destinations (A, B, and C).

A: 100,180
B: 100,180,200
C: 100,183

  We could have implemented proper forking if it weren't for C who
insisted on sending media early (for whatever reason).  While I could
see many scenarios where this might happen even with the configuration
I suggest, consider what would happen in the ideal scenario:

A: 100,180
B: 100,180,200
C: 100,180

  Ah, B won because it was the first endpoint to actually /answer/ the
call and begin playing media.  Nice and clean.

  This is what happens when dialing local phones behind a PBX.  All
endpoint SIP phones send 180 to allow for clean parallel forking
across them.  This is what makes configuration for ring groups, etc,
possible.  I'm not suggesting that this configuration could be simply
"dropped in" when dialing to the PSTN but it should at least be a a
possibility.

  I suppose the other thing here (which is possible and has been
suggested) is to configure your device to ignore early media.  Too bad
(due to various reasons, some of them being legacy PSTN) that in some
cases the user should hear that 183.  Speaking of which...

> Furthermore, that audio path is used to convey all sorts of messages:
> "the number you have called has been changed", "the cellphone you have
> called has not responded", "calls to 1-800 numbers are not free if
> made from overseas.."  Lastly, there's no guarantee that it'll be
> possible to differentiate between one of these and ringback from the
> signalling alone and, in many cases, there is simply no mechanism
> available to provide such differentiation.

  People poke at SIP all the time for this one but this is where the
PSTN even seems a bit ambiguous.  We have ISDN cause codes AND inband
audio messages?

  I'm reminded of a situation the other day with a provider's SIP
architecture.  If you send a call to a completely bogus destination
number (1, in this case) they reply with an inband audio error
message.  Why not send a 404 or something that is easily parsed and
understood by my platform (FreeSWITCH)?  In this case I needed to do
some further action in the event of a "call failure" and as far as
bridge/mod_sofia is concerned this was a "successful" call.  I know
this specific instance could be avoided but I can't wait to see what
else they play inband audio messages for.  Of course I can't really
configure my end to ignore early media because I could miss out on
some legit inband audio messaging that is actually useful.

> You're probably best advised to swim with the tide on this one..!

  If I "swam with the tide" I'd probably be out getting my CCIE and
installing Call Manager systems or something ;).  Maybe that's not the
best or the most "fair" analogy but hopefully you can see my point.  I
think there's a little rebel in all of us here on freeswitch-users!

-- 
Kristian Kielhofner
http://blog.krisk.org
http://www.submityoursip.com
http://www.astlinux.org
http://www.star2star.com