[GnomeMeeting-list] When Ekiga rings... follow-up

[Fabien Chevalier <fabchevalier free fr>]

Hello All,

Many thanks for your answers, suggestions and remarks regarding my 
previous post :-)

After having read all your answers, i feel the need to add some more 
fuel to the debate :-)
In a form a a small Q&A.

Q: Why the way Ekiga currently rings makes it unusuable (or at least 
really painful to use) ?

Given the fact that the number of ring tones variates from one call to 
another, i have no way to count the tones to avoid the voicemail.
Being able to avoid the voice mail for me is an important for the 
following to cases:
  - i want to call the guys i work with that are in a remote location. 
However if they are not there, i get redirected to a team assistant. The 
fact that the team assistant assists ~ 30 people makes her unlikely to 
be of any interest for me. Which means when i call the guy, i give up 
after a few tones, and would try later rather than having to explain my 
case to this tem assistant. Ok, this case is rather tricky, and is just 
too "myself-oriented". But let see the next one.
  - when i call my friends on their mobile phone and their mobile phone 
is not up, i sometimes don't wanna let a message in there voicemail 
either. Using ekiga, i won't be able to avoid their voicemail, and will 
be charged like hell by their mobile network operator. (well, like hell
is a bit too much, i know :-) )

Q:Why is it important to solve this issue ?
The SIP provider i use is a broadband Internet provider that has ~ 1.5 
Million ADSL subsribers. It is known to be Linux friendly (i.e. it 
publicly advertises it uses Linux internally, has contributes back to 
VideoLAN project when it launched it's TV service, makes no trouble when 
you connect your Linux box to their network). As such it is the
Internet provider most people using Linux use nowadays in France.
The SIP service is free, and provides free calls to landlines in France 
and in many Internationnal country. It is likely to be the beginning of 
the "SIP revolution" where you don't have to pay anything to call 
anybody anywhere.
As this service is still experimental, it hasn't been advertised, and 
many people don't use it yet. However when it will be launched in 
September, and i wouldn't be surprised to have tens of thousands of 
Linux users willing to use Ekiga with it. :-) (For Damien : no it does 
not send call progress media... too bad !!)

How to fix the issue ? Here are 3 possible solutions:
  1 - Do nothing until we receive the "ringing" SIP message. Then start 
ringing. I would tend to believe that the user does not need any 
feedback to know that the call is in progress. In fact the user asked 
the phone to dial somewhere. It wouldn't make sense for the phone to 
*silently* ignore the user action. The phone should throw up un error 
message saying that something bad prevented it to start dialing instead. 
But i bet that it is already the way Ekiga works, isn't it ? (and by the 
way, it is the way most UNIX commands work too :-) - They do not print
anything on success)
  2 - Create a new king of tone : a "dialing tone". Play the "dialing 
tone" until we receive the "ringing" SIP message. Then play the 
"ringing" tone.
  3 - implement a Throbber to notify the user that the call is in 
progress. Launch the ring tone only when we receive the "ringing" SIP 
message.

I would personnally go for 1 or 2. 3 would work too but requires more work.
For your information, SJPhone implements solution 2.

Polls are opens!! What do you guys think of these solutions ??

Cheers,

Fabien