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Extension Dialing

For environments with a blend of telephony technologies, SIP trunk extension dialing will reduce phone costs and improve local communications. It allows you to assign extensions to SIP trunks and Business Cloud Communications users on the same account, enabling those extensions to dial each other. This means that:

  • A user with an extension on the SIP trunk can dial the extension of an IP phone.

  • A user with an IP phone can dial an extension on the SIP trunk.

In one example, we helped a retirement community radically overhaul their ease of dialing and reduce costs. The community has an onsite nursing wing, assisted living apartments, and private retirement cottages that needed to bridge the communication gap between their onsite PBX connected by a SIP trunk and IP phones connected to hosted PBX lines. The SIP trunk extension dialing feature enables the residents and caretakers to reach anyone in the community via their 3-4 digit extensions, regardless of their location and telephone technologies.

Assign Extensions to SIP Trunk

Here's how you do it:

  1. First, go to Account > Settings > Devices and check your settings. For extension dialing to function properly, Dialing Behavior must be set to Open Dialing or an option that allows an extension.

  2. Next, go to Account > SIP Trunks > Trunks.

  3. Select a SIP trunk or add a new one.

  4. Under Definition, assign extensions to the SIP trunk. You can enter single extensions, variable extensions, or an extension range in a string; separate each value by a comma.

    • Single: 2100 = Extension 2100

    • Variable: 21XX = All extensions between 2100 and 2100

    • Range: 2110-2199 = All extensions between 2100 and 2199

    • String: 4200-5500, 5501, 5578, 68XX

Note

A single extension cannot be assigned to multiple locations (user, group, or SIP trunk). If an end user is assigned an extension that overlaps with an extension range assigned to a SIP trunk, calls to that extension will be routed to the end user, not to the SIP trunk.

Additionally, if an end user extension overlaps an extension range assigned to a SIP trunk, calls to that extension will be routed to the user and not the SIP trunk.

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