7.52 Distinctive Ring

Distinctive ring (modem dependent) allows upto four different ring types per phone line. That is four individual phone numbers, per line.

To setup distinctive ring, read the section on "Understanding The Distinctive Ring Preferences".

Distinctive ring allows a server to be connected to one physical phone extension, but have the ability to perform different 'actions' based on the number called. For instance, one phone extension could have two different numbers '460117' and '468886'. If a call is made to 460117, STFax will recognise the call, due to the ring value, and answer in fax mode. If a call is made to 468886, STFax would answer as a fax on demand service.

A small or home business would be able to split one line, with two different phone numbers, to perform two different tasks. Some examples include:

• Business and personal. In some areas of the country BT are unable to offer more than one phone line per household. In this case, the user would be able to use the one phone line, with two numbers - one for personal calls and one for business.

  STFax could be used during the day to differentiate between these two calls. Indeed, STFax could play a 'Sorry, we are currently unavailable, Please leave a message after the tone' message, for the personal number, but allow the caller to answer the business line.

  After business hours, the opposite would apply. STFax could play 'Sorry, we are open between the hours of 9am and 6pm, Monday to Friday. Please leave a message after the tone' but would ignore calls to the personal line. So, if a call came into the personal number, after 6pm, STFax would let the call ring (perhaps for x number of rings), allowing the user to answer the call manually, via their telephone handset.

• Sales and support. A user would be able to advertise two different numbers (one for sales, one for support), and answer the call, with a different greeting or script, depending on the number called. STFax could be used to warn a user of an incoming sales or support call.

  The added advantage of this system is that if the user is answering one of the numbers (ie. support), both numbers appear 'engaged' to another caller. This is ideal for the small or home business who often have one staff member - a consultant or similar.

  If the user had to pay a visit to a client, they could leave STFax to answer the support number with a greeting, but any calls made to sales would be transferred to his mobile phone.

• Phone and fax. A user would be able to advertise two numbers (one for voice calls and another as a fax only number), again using one phone line. A call comes into the voice number, STFax would ignore it (unless it is set up to answer after x rings, automatically). A call comes into the fax number; STFax would answer, in fax mode, without delay.

  Again, if the user leaves the office, calls made to the phone number could be transferred to his mobile phone, whilst STFax answers fax calls in fax mode.

• Phone and fax on demand. STFax could be setup, as described above, to ignore the call if it is an incoming voice call (to the voice number). However, a user could set up another number as a fax on demand system. A user calls this number, is greeted by the fax on demand system and can quickly choose the required fax documents.

  There are a number of interesting actions that can be applied to distinctive ring. The function is ideal for the small or home business who are limited by the number of phone lines they can have installed (ie. you can often only have two lines per house, as standard).

  STFax supports BT's 'Call Sign' (distinctive ring, but with only two ring type options).

Understanding the Distinctive Ring Preferences

• Enable distinctive rings  allows you to turn on support for Distinctive Ring.

• Ring 1  - ring 1 is meant to be the default ring on this line, thus works with the settings setup within the server.

• Ring 2 - 4  - rings 2 - 4 are the additional rings on this phone line. You can assign these rings to answer in fax mode (as a fax machine), to execute a voice script (voice mode), to answer in data mode (enters into the mini-BBS) or to ignore the incoming call (useful if you want one ring to act as your personal line, thus answered during the day, and another ring as your business line, to be answered by you, thus ignored by STFax).