5 Most Used Features of VoIP for Residential and How to

Configure Them?

Effective and reliable communication is essential in our day-to-day lives, especially to be

connected with friends and family. Residential Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a
telephone service that utilizes your home internet connection to route calls, instead of using
the traditional copper wires. A common concern in making the transition to VoIP is giving
up your landline service, meaning giving up your number in exchange for a new one. With
number portability, VoIP.ms allows you to keep your old landline number so this way you
can keep your current number. Setting up your VoIP phone to forward calls to your mobile
number is just one of the many ways you can stay connected, even when you’re not home.

Some of the five most frequently used features of VoIP for residential users and how to
configure them are thus discussed.

1. Ring Group
The Ring Group feature allows users to have incoming calls to be redirected to different
destinations that are included in the Ring Group. Thus, when the user receives a call to a
DID number routed to a Ring Group, all members of that group will ring at the same time
until one of them answers the call.

Note that the limit of members in a Ring Group is 12: Up to 8 (SIP, IAX2, or SIP URI)
members and up to 4 call forward entries per each Ring Group.

-How to set up Ring Groups on your portal.

1. From your main portal refer to DID Numbers >> Ring Group >> Click here to create a
new ring group.

2. Next, enter the following information:

Description- To easily identify your ring groups.

Caller Announcement - You can select the default announcement or one of your
own recordings to be played to the caller before sending the call to the Ring Group.
Music - The caller will hear the selected music while waiting for the call the be
answered.
Members - Choose if the main account, sub-accounts, SIP URI’s or call forwarding
entries will be ringing when you will receive an incoming call.
Voicemail - Select a Voicemail for this ring group that will override the default DID
Voicemail.
3. Finally, click “Create” button.

4. To set it up, route your DID to your ring group, go to DID

Numbers >> Manage DID >> Edit DID >> Routing >> Ring Group
and apply the settings to have them changed.

Learn more in the configuration guide here

2. Voicemail to e-mail
This feature permits users to associate their voicemail to their DID Number and have any
voicemail messages left forwarded to their email address as an attachment. This means that
the user can receive them in their email address and listen to them in a device, such as a
computer, a mobile phone or a tablet.

-How to set up a Voicemail in your account.

1. From your Customer Portal, create a Voicemail account (Customer Portal >> DID
Numbers >> Voicemail >> Create New Voicemail Account).

2. Next, fill in the necessary information requested.

Name - Describes and or identifies the mailbox.

Password - Secures access to your mailbox account.
Voicemail Number - Ranges from 1-10 digits and is a unique identifier to your
mailbox.
 Voicemail Language - Indicates your language preference. All instructions, audio
and visual alike will be given in this language.
Notification Email - If provided, email notifications will be sent whenever a new
message is received.
Skip Password Prompt - If approved, login will be direct upon dialing *97 from
an associated account.
3. Then, assign your new Voicemail to your DID number (Customer Portal >> DID Numbers
>> Manage DID >> Edit DID >> Voicemail associated with DID). Press the "View Advanced
Mode" button so it displays further options to modify your mailbox.

In the "Attach message to email" field: Set to YES, the Mailbox will attach a .WAV file
containing the new message every time it sends an email notification.
In the "Attachment Format" field: You can select between WAV49, or mp3 format.
4. Next, assign your new Voicemail to your Main Account (Customer Portal >> Main Menu
>> Account Settings >> General >> Voicemail Associated to the Main Account).

5. Finally, manage your messages and voicemails to best suit you (Customer Portal >> DID
Numbers >> Voicemail >> Delete/Edit/List).

Learn more in the configuration guide here

3. CallerID Filtering
Through this feature, the user is able to create and apply routing rules to specific CallerID
numbers. This is to say that the CallerID Filtering feature permits the filtering of incoming
calls following several routing options. This can be very helpful to residential users as
whitelisting specific numbers and routing them to a specific destination (call hunting, ring
group, call forwarding) or blocking anonymous and specific numbers.

-How to set up the CallerID Filtering option on your portal.

1. From your Customer Portal, create a CallerID Filtering entry (Customer Portal >> DID
Numbers >> CallerID Filtering).

2. Next, select the filter type of your choice. Some of the most common options often include
Anonymous CallerID Number and a Specific CallerID Number.

3. Then, choose the DID number to apply the filter. Note that you can also select all of the
DID numbers you have in your account.

Blacklist: This will block all of the numbers in the list and then go to the “no
answer” option.
 Whitelist: This will allow incoming calls from all the numbers in that list, you can
even chose to forward that call into a ring group or forwarded to a specific DID.
Wildcards: This will allow specific terms, for example:

X - Matches any digit at the specific location in the number.

* - Matches any number of digits and any digit.
4. Finally, manage any filtering rules already created at your convenience by
modifying their entries.

Learn more in the configuration guide here

4. Call Forwarding
A Call Forwarding allows an incoming call to be redirected to a mobile
telephone or other telephone number where the desired called party is able to
answer. You can set any number, even international numbers.

Note that call forwarding will incur both an inbound and outgoing charge.

-How to set up the Call Forwarding option on your portal.

1. From your Customer Portal, create a Call Forwarding entry (Customer

Portal >>> DID Numbers >> Call Forwarding >> Add Forwarding).

2. Next, input your preferred local phone number, including the prefixes 00
or 011 in case of international numbers. In the case of the latter, do not forget
to activate the International Calls option in your account.

CallerID Override - this lets you send the Caller ID of your choice to the
destination in order to recognize where the call comes from.
Description - This can help you identify a particular Call Forwarding entry.
DTMF Digits - It allows you to enter the digits that would be dialed once the call is
connected to your call forward number.
Pause - The number of seconds the system would wait before it sends the DTMF
digits you set with the option above.
3. Then, at your discretion, assign your Call Forwarding entry to your DID number you wish
to have calls forwarded to another number, go to (Customer Portal >> DID Numbers >>
Manage DID).
4. Next, choose the DID number(s) you wish to forward and select the Edit option. This will
take you to the Edit DID Settings page where you will select Call Forwarding under the
Routing option.

5. Finally, select your number from the drop-down menu and apply your changes.

Learn more in the configuration guide here

5. Callback
This involves using a third party to make calls at a relatively lower cost in the even of
asymmetrical international phone rates. This feature would be used, for example, if you only
have access to your mobile phone and would require to make an urgent phone call to an
international destination, another example is if you would be out of the country or traveling,
having a SIM card from the country you are visiting with a pre-paid service and needing to
make a call to a friend or family member while passing via VoIP.ms network.

-How to set up the Callback option on your portal.

1. From your Customer Portal, create Callback entry (Customer Portal >> DID Numbers >>
Callback >> Create a New Callback Entry).

2. Next, fill in the necessary information requested.

Description – Describes the callback entry.

Number to call – Indicates the number meant to receive the call with a dial tone.
Delay before callback – Denotes the amount of time (in seconds) after which the
system will call back.
Response timeout – Indicates the maximum amount of waiting time before hang-
up after an invalid number is dialed.
Digit timeout – Indicates the maximum time interval between digits during input.
3. Finally, create the entry and route any of your DID numbers to the recently-created
Customer Portal >> DID Numbers >> Manage DIDs >> editing your DID number.

Learn more in the configuration guide here

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