Click-to-dial without Asterisk or softphone

[dvb]

Greetings!

We would like to give SIP phone (hardware, not softphone) users click-to-dial functionality from within the ZCS web GUI. We do not have an Asterisk server. What we have is a session border controller with a MetaSwitch (Class 5 softswitch) sitting behind that. Phones register with the SBC and the SBC registers with the MetaSwitch on the phone's behalf.

We are just starting to sell hosted PBX systems using this model and we are considering rolling ZCS into the package, preferably with click-to-dial functionality. With the MetaSwitch and SBC at our disposal, we really don't need an Asterisk server and, to be honest, I've had no experience whatsoever with Asterisk, so I couldn't even begin to guess if our combination of equipment might work with the Asterisk zimlet.

Which brings me to this: what Asterisk-specific functionality does the Asterisk zimlet rely on to work its magic? Is it possible that we could use the zimlet with our non-Asterisk setup? I would love to hear from anyone who is using the zimlet with a non-Asterisk SIP setup.

Thanks in advance!

Dave

Release 5.0.13_GA_2792.RHEL4_20090206100559 CentOS4 NETWORK edition

[uxbod]

The Zimlet uses the Asterisk Manager API to initiate the call bridge.

Using it with another system would very much depend on whether it had a remote API or not ???

[Dirk]

This will depend on the phones you are using.

With an Asterisk server, the type of phone does not matter, as the Zimlet is talking to the server and the server initiates the call. Without the server, you will be talking directly to the phone, and so the Zimlet you would create would be phone specific in the same was as the current one is specific to asterisk.

If you can initiate a call by a soap uri to the phone, then you could me the Zimlet work. I think you would need to define the local SIP URI for your deskphone in the zimlet and the zimlet would then contact that device and send it the destination number; it's all doable but I'm not aware of any handsets that actually offer this function. If any do it though, I'd suspect it'd be SNOM.