Restricting or forcing authorization of incoming POTs calls?

[jwornstaff]

I have a small VoIP phone system running with CME on my routers. I have a remote building, that is only occupied a few times a year by maintenance workers that actually stay and sleep there. They are getting woke up a half dozen times a night with robo calls.
There is a analog POTS line connected to an FXO port that is paired to the inside voice numbers that current allows/accepts all inbound and outbound calls through the CME gateway router.

There is only a handful of people that know and need to call the POTS line to reach the maintenance workers in the event of an emergency but they do need to be reached sometimes at night, so I can't after hour block all.

All the examples and tech notes I have researched show FAC being used for outbound calls. So, I was wondering if there was way to force a PIN authorization for all incoming POTs calls, so that only those that know the PIN would get through and hopefully stop the phones ringing after hours by robo calls or is there an easier more efficient way to do it.

I am not a voice expert, so sorry for the lack of configs but not really sure where to start....thanks.

[Vaijanath Sonvane]

Hi,

You can configure Time-of-Day Routing on CME. During day time send the call to inside voice numbers and during night time send the call to any dummy number. Please check this post for configuration:

https://community.cisco.com/t5/collaboration-voice-and-video/configuring-time-of-day-routing-on-cme/ta-p/3114592

[jwornstaff]

Hey thanks for taking the time to reply and the info, but unfortunately like I mentioned, we need to be able to call them after hours in the event of an emergency, so I still need to allow incoming POTs call for legitimate calls, but want to block the Spam calls or somehow force an authorization code to get past the gateway and into the internal Voice Systems.

There are about a 12 people that could possible be allowed to call in from outside POTs line but no telling what number they may call from, i.e. could be the on call phone, could be work number, personal cell, home phone, so trying to setup and maintain a translation rulefor allowable incoming number might be nightmare as well...plus Im not that well versed in created them anyway.

[Jaime Valencia]

To answer your question, no, FAC is only for outbound calls. You might be able to do what you want, but you would need to create a TCL script to ask for the PIN and then allow the call.

If you have identified the numbers from which they call, you can configure translation rules to block their calls.

[jwornstaff]

I was afraid of that after doing some more reading.

But anyway, I found a simple way that was staring me in the face. The FXO port was configure for plar to the direct extension, I remove the plar statement and added secondary dialtone. So, when you call the POTS phone number, we get a second dial tone, then just input the digit for the internal phone number, it appears to be working be but won't be able to confirm until the next maintenance window when personnel are on site.