atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Toshiba Telephones & Systems Installing new PRI card in Strata....

I'm rather unfamiliar with the whole Strata system, and I'd greatly appreciate a kick in the right direction. Ultimately I get to slap a PRI card into an expansion cabinet for a Strata CIX system. Anyone know what needs to be configured; I can not find a whole lot of good help documentation on what to do after the physical installation? I'm more of a Nortel guy, and this is sort of new waters for me.

Secondly is there other software, means, such as putty or telnet to configure one of these? the Emanager software doesn't seem to like either of my laptops.

A couple quick notes, since it's a bit late for me to put together a complete how-to guide.
A PRI card will work much better in slot 3 of the main cabinet. I assume that there is already a card there.
Nothing is auto configured in the Toshiba(after the initial setup), unlike the Nortel. All cards have to be assigned in programing
Emanager is your only choice for admin.
If you don't have 23 additional port licenses for the PRI you are not going to be able to easily program the card, unless you can gain licenses by deleting the old lines and unused extensions.

Edit: I made 2 assumptions in the above post. One is that it is a CIX 100, and not a CIX 670. And the other is that the PRI has 23 B channels. I usually program all PRI cards are 23 channels (with additional channels disabled) in case they expand later. You would still need 23 port licenses to initially setup a 23 channel PRI.

There are a lot of gotchas to installing a PRI card in the Toshiba. Even where you are physically putting the card will require some thought. You didn't mention if this was a 100 or a 670. If a 100 slot 3 is best because it has 24 bit slot. The other slots are 16 bit. The PRI card will work but can only support up to 16 channels in of the other slots. On a 670 only certain slots (1-5 if memory serves) are 16 bit. The card MUST be installed in an odd numbered slot and will also require NOT using the adjacent higher numbered even slot if configuring for more than 16 channels.

Once you get that figured out, do you have enough station/port licenses?

Then you will need to set the PRI card to be the clock for the system, set up incoming and outgoing line groups, configure the PRI channel group, program the DID.

As Newtecky indicated, you will need working EManager software to do this.

You would be money ahead to work with a Toshiba dealer. If the system has a modem card, this can all be configured remotely (hopefully at a reduced rate) and then all you do is insert the card, connect the PRI, and test. Even if the tech had to visit the site, the headache this would save would put you and your customer ahead of the curve. ~ Mike

Just an FYI, slots 1 to 6 on the expansion ar 16 channels. The rest are 8 channel. So you could use 1, 3, or 5 on the expansion cabinet for a PRI with up to 23 channels.

If it was only a 16 channel PRI then the requirements change, but if possible, I prefer to assume it could become a full PRI later.

Where is a good source of information to learn this sort of information, as well as were I could reference to pass this sort of stuff along, since this appears to be part of a project that the blind are leading the blind on?

And any idea how it would be possible to discover if this is a 100 or 670 model with out logging in to the control software. I have pictures but nothing gives me a "model" information that match the model numbers that I turned up researching for the equipment models, like 100 or 670. The only "model" information I have is the main cabinet, and the expansion cabinet attached to it.

If the main cabinet and the expansion are black are taller then they are wide, and the expansion is attached directly to the right, then you have a CIX100
https://bit.ly/OJv9X7

On a CIX 670 wall mounted version, the cabinets are longer, they are an almond color , and the expansion cabinet will be above or below the main cabinet.
https://bit.ly/OJvedm

Other systems include the smaller CIX40 (which would not take a PRI card), A CIX 200, which is black and only rack mounted, the CIX670 rack mounted cabinet which is also black, and the CIX 1200, which looks just like the CIX670 but with more cabinets.