Yesterday I saw something I've never seen before. My customer called with a strange ringing problem. They had three pots lines in a hunt group supplied by the local telco. Worked fine. If line 1 was busy, the next call rolled over to line 2, etc. Simple key system, brand isn't important.

Customer changed dial tone provider last fall. Left telco and went to Mediacom cable company, who is now providing dial tone to some businesses in town. Cable co. switched the lines, everything seemed ok.

I happened to be in the customer's office yesterday and noticed how an incoming call is handled in the cable company's "hunt group". If all lines are idle, an incoming call will ring in on line 1. Good. After two rings, the call starts ringing on line 2, and is dropped on line 1! After two more rings, the call starts ringing on line 3, and is dropped on line 2!!!

What kind of hunt is this?

Jim

Sounds like some sort of "No Answer Divert" as opposed to a "Busy Hunt/Divert"

Sam

Cable companies do not understand hunting. They think it is hunt on No Answer as well as busy. If you have your Auto Attendant/Voice Mail set to answer on 4 rings, you will never get the call!!

Charter Cable says they can't disable that "feature", but I have been able to have them set the Hunting Ring number to something like 30 rings, to effectively bypassing the problem, but it's like pulling teeth to find someone that understands what you want to do.

We have Comcast in this area. You are correct Tommy, They do not use "hunting" lines like we are accustomed to. Their hunt group is a forward on busy to the next line and no forwarding on the last line. Yoda, it sounds like they have it set for forward no answer to the next line. Comcast is kicking the crap out of Verizon.
They can provide multiple lines with 30-60 mbps of bandwith for short money and are rolling out PRI service.

I live and work in "Beverly Hills East" where it is not unusual for a residential customer to own a house of 20,000 square feet or more. These houses have staff quarters, garages, pool houses, guest cottages, gate houses, etc, and require a key system to make it all work.

The local cable company WILL NOT provide hunting on residential lines. The customer must create a business account to get hunting. They absolutely do not understand the nature of the demographics in their own service area. It drives me crazy.

I was there when the customer called in the trouble report, and all they could do was increase the number of rings before the transfer happened.

It almost sounds like it's a hunt for a number that will answer. Like trying a landline number first, then if no answer, trying a cell number, then another number, etc.. That might be ok for some single line uses, but definately not for a business multi line hunt.

I agree, they don't understand hunting, a basic business requirement for phone lines. Cable companies should stick to providing tv programming.

Jim

Now ya got it......they are used to single line users....had an insurance agency that put up with CATV dial tone for a couple of months and went back to Ma Bell just because of this same problem.

The rep told the customer that if they had three phone sets they needed three telephone numbers. If set/line one didn't answer in three rings it went to the next and so on until it got back to set one and started all over again until it had rung like 20 times.

I told the customer to tell them that they had 40 or 50 sets....CATV couldn't furnish that many numbers so they voided the contract and the customer went back to Ma Bell....and the problem went away.

Stupid is as stupid does....Yoda, what channel does Johnny show up on????

TTT is right they just don't understand!!! I was on the phone with the cable co. the other day and boy was I frustrated. Esp. after being on the phone with them for a half an hour and they said they made the changes after I explained to the them. I hang up and test and like I assumed it still didn't work and had to call back!!!

Had the same issue with Insight Cable in Louisville, KY. Line 1 rang 4 times it went to Line 2 and then back to line 1 before it went to voice mail provided by them. They couldn't grasp the idea that if somebody didn't answer the phone in 4 rings chances are there not going to answer it in 12.

Ken,

Do you mean Johnny Carson? Late night hasn't been the same since he left

As far as hunt groups, . . . live and learn.

Jim

We've had that kind of trouble with Charter Cable as well...dismal service really. When we moved offices (one block) it took them 7 days to get our phones up and 9 days to get our internet service stable. I think I spent two hours on the phone (mostly on hold) to get the hunt straightened out. And the funny thing was, that is was working fine in our old location. Couldn't they just copy the setup?

Sounds like it depends on the cable company. Comcast up here has a business division totally seperate from residential. sales guys used to work for Verizon, OneComm etc. They seem to get it.

Time Warner Cable in my area has their lines hunt properly.... my guess is all of them have the ability to do so with their equipment they just don't know how to program it.

Is it really possible for a company to try and sell dialtone to businesses and not be able to offer traditional hunting functionality??

Comcast should stick to TV. Not only do they do sloppy work, How many " other Providers " install an RJ21X when setting up their Lines, Just about Everyone, But, Not Comcast.., nope, they just say " you want rj11 interface or push-in ? " and then they crimp on ends and make a mess.Then, It takes multiple calls to get an order straight. My 2 cents.

Ditto to what Brian said.

I hear what you are saying nonameyet but the customer only sees lower costs and more bandwith. With that said up here Comcast techs are more reliable than Verizon techs.

I'm going to open up a can of worms here but I have to say it. I beleive it's in part due to Comcast is non union and Verizon is union. on this area.

Rant alert....

Verizon has been undergoing some large transformations as of late. Much of it is due to the decline of their wireline business.

The old New England Telephone corporate office building on Franklin Street in Boston has been sold and much of the work that was done there has been sent to other states like New York City and Virginia.

The company has lost a lot of workers. Some through layoffs and others through buyouts. The loss of workers has left the company with a large backlog of work (at least on the Enterprise side).

The company I work for (a CLEC) has been trying to groom DS3 circuits to reduce our CoA (Cost of Access). For the past year or so, Verizon has repeatedly dropped the ball. Their techs do NOT show up as promised or they make last minute cancellations so technicians....like me....are not made aware. We show up as scheduled around midnight, open a conference bridge and sit there....waiting for Verizon to join the bridge...only to find out that Verizon sent an after hours Email to our company canceling the night's work.

Up until about 2 years ago, the horror stories about dealing with Verizon in other parts of the country (New York Telephone & Bell Atlantic) were not seen by me. The New England Telephone workers were pretty easy to work with.

Sadly that is no longer the case.

Verizon has moved the New England "Carrier Access Trouble Center" (CATC) from Boston down to somewhere in Virginia.

When the CATC was located in Boston, wait times were fairly short. Yesterday I waited in the CATC queue for over 90 minutes trying to open a trouble report on some trunks that were blocked in the Verizon Harrison Ave Central Office in Boston. By the time 90 minutes rolled around I hung up in sheer frustration.

I think Verizon's decision to sell their networks in the states of Maine, New Hampshire & Vermont to Fairpoint Communications was part of this decision to shrink the company almost to the point where you'd think that they no longer want to operate as a LEC.

Because of the reduction in work force, Verizon has been forced to plead for patience while it tries to figure out how to clear the logjam of backorders.

The problem is....many of us are either fast running out of (or completely lost) patience with the current incarnation of Verizon.

Sorry about the detour. If needed, it can be moved or made into a brand new topic of some sort.

Verizon in this area made it clear many years ago, dating back to the early 1990's as Bell Atlantic that they were focusing upon moving their wired business toward being a transport provider.

They have done this here. Their preferred customer is now the CLEC and they treat their direct customers like camel dung. Don't dare be a POTS customer of Verizon's anymore unless you really don't need phone service.

Think about it: By being a transport provider, they remove themselves from the end-user issues. No business office arguments, no billing disputes, guaranteed revenue, no technical support, no service calls, no nothing. On their end, it works.

As for your situation, Dexman: They have now escalated themselves to the point were they can even treat their prime (CLEC) customers like dogs. They know that in most markets, they still are the predominant provider of fiber or copper pairs. Their attitude is "If you don't like it, take your business elsewhere". They say this while knowing that you can't.

They are also dodging many state/local laws with regard to service levels. Since most laws are old and dating back to the Bell System days, they are 'rubber-stamped' when renewals come along. The crusty old politicians have no clue about modifying these franchise laws. By being the transport provider, they are absolved of having to uphold the end-user service levels for which these laws provide. The CLEC accepted that obligation when they took responsibility for the customer. Little did they know that they have to rely upon the shifty middle man to make it happen.

Verizon, as well as most LECs are laughing all the way to the bank these days. They simply provide a circuit, they always swear that it works and leave it up to their customer to figure out where the LEC screwed up.

"I'm not guilty unless you can prove it."

I like their logic in a sadistic kind of way.

When I read this, I thought, how can this be? Comcast is better than Verizon? Then I read on. Oh my. We must be reduced to only grading on the curve now - except instead of a curve, we have a slope.

What I don't get is some companies thought process when switching their voice services from LEC to Cable.
Some customers I have seen that do this, probably have fixed costs & overheads in the Millions each year, and by porting their 8 line hunt group from LEC to Cable they will save maybe $100 to $150 per month, that's $1200 per year..... big deal........I don't get it.....

To quote some senator from the '60's: "A Billion here, a Billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money". Same thing, save some here, some there, and pretty soon you can throw 1 heck of an office party!