telephony Telephony ( ) is the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunications services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. The history of telephony is ...

, line hunting (or hunt group) is the method of distributing phone calls from a single

telephone number A telephone number is the address of a Telecommunications, telecommunication endpoint, such as a telephone, in a telephone network, such as the public switched telephone network (PSTN). A telephone number typically consists of a Number, sequ ...

to a group of several phone lines. Specifically, it refers to the process or

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of Rigour#Mathematics, mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algo ...

used to select which line will receive the call. Hunt groups are supported by some PBX phone systems. Also, some phone companies will provide this feature for a small fee (see also:

Centrex Centrex is a portmanteau of central exchange, a kind of telephone exchange. It provides functions similar to a PBX, but is provisioned with equipment owned by, and located at, the telephone company premises. Centrex service was first install ...

). In the tariffs of some telephone companies, one may obtain hunting for free, but forward on busy is a charged service.

Multi-line hunting

''Multiline hunting'' (sometimes MLH, ''line hunting'' or MHG, ''multiline hunting group'') is a

feature Feature may refer to: Computing * Feature recognition, could be a hole, pocket, or notch * Feature (computer vision), could be an edge, corner or blob * Feature (machine learning), in statistics: individual measurable properties of the phenome ...

that allows multiple

telephone line A telephone line or telephone circuit (or just line or circuit industrywide) is a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system. It is designed to reproduce speech of a quality that is understandable. It is the physical wire or oth ...

s going into a business to act as a single group, called a ''hunt group''. This type of fallback is a somewhat more complex form of

call forwarding Call forwarding, or call diversion, is a telephony feature of all telephone switching systems which redirects a telephone call to another destination, which may be, for example, a mobile or another telephone number where the desired called party i ...

. If the line called is busy, the call goes to the next available line. Only if no lines in the group are open does the

calling party The calling party (in some contexts called the "A-Number") is a person who (or device that) initiates a telephone call. The person who, or device that, receives a telephone call is the called party (or callee or B-party). In some countries, it i ...

get a

busy signal A busy signal (or busy tone or engaged tone) in telephony is an audible call-progress tone or audible signal to the calling party that indicates failure to complete the requested connection of that particular telephone call. The busy signa ...

Linear hunting

In ''linear hunting'', calls are always delivered to the lowest-numbered available line. This is also referred to as ''serial hunting'' or ''terminal hunting''. It resembles ''busy/no-answer call forwarding''. Calls are always delivered to the first line, unless it is busy—then the second, third, and remaining lines are considered in succession. This configuration is most often found on multi-line phones found at small businesses. For

automatic call distributor An automated call distribution system, commonly known as automatic call distributor or automatic call dispatcher (ACD), is a telephony device that answers and distributes incoming calls to a specific group of terminals or agents within an organiz ...

systems with high call volumes, this is usually the least preferable method, because calls will arrive at destinations that are in the process of completing the previous call, and depending on the circumstances, may be the least prepared to take the call. Linear hunting can also cause problems in automated equipment that answers calls, particularly if a destination extension fails on a lower-numbered line. This extension will disrupt a disproportionately high percentage of the incoming calls, whereas circular hunting will spread that disruption evenly throughout all the calls, minimizing the possibility for a major disruption.

Circular hunting

In ''circular hunting'', the calls are distributed "round-robin". If a call is delivered to line 1, the next call goes to 2, the next to 3. The succession throughout each of the lines continues even if one of the previous lines becomes free. When the end of the hunt group is reached, the hunting starts over at the first line. Lines are skipped only if they are still busy on a previous call. Circular hunting is a good way to distribute calls to electronic answering equipment such as fax machines.

Most-idle hunting

In ''most-idle hunting'', calls are always delivered to whichever line has been idle the longest. This considers the length of time that the calltaker has been busy versus available. This is typically used in call centers where the calls are being answered by people, to distribute the load evenly.

References

Calling features

Multi-line hunting

Linear hunting

Circular hunting

Most-idle hunting

See also

References