atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Mitel Telephones & Systems sx 200 ICP, crank calls

we installed SX 200 ICP at a property around 1 year back. But its strted acting weird from last 1 month. every now & then few extensions will ring & if u answer there is no one on the other side. There is no pms & its a small prperty of just 30 rooms & the system is also never switced to auto attendant. I tried reinitializing last time & reprogrammed the system but it still continues. Any guess what could be the problem ??? & also it happens on random extensions

I understud that this is a small Motel. There are couple things I would check out: Flash in Conferance has to be Disable i room's COS and Wake up from Extension. If that wake up never was answered it will be ringing back to that extension every day at setup time.

I would also enable cos option 223 flash disable in the cos of the rooms.

I'm betting a beer on this one!!
The problem is that one (or more) of your analog ports are failing.
The ports send "pulses", even though the phones are on hook.
Those of us old enough to remember rotary phones, realize that the "pulses" are actually being interpreted as dialed digits.
The trick now is to figure out which port is doing it!
By the way, no one notices this during the day, because no one is in there room to hear the ringing!
If possible, change your console (or a display phone), to ext.111, and you'll be able to see the ext. that's calling!

I have had many instances years ago where the room is not hanging up on a trunk call, but flashing the switch hook on a trunk and that trunk rings back. To further troubleshoot this turn on smdr for incoming and outgoing if you haven't already to eliminate the trunks calling in. Trouble in or out, a good way to troubleshoot anything. Good to try lots

I saw something in another post a while back reporting a very similar problem on a Panasonic 336 PBX. I'll bet another beer that there is a corroded jack or connection for a station that's causing an intermittent short which results in pulses being sent. Since you mentioned that is is a small property, I'll guess that it is older and existing wiring was reused. I can't tell you how many small motels or B&B's around here have station wiring run outside with exposed "maintenance man" splices.

One question: Can't you program the station ports on that switch for DTMF only? That might stop the issue until the failing station cable or jack goes out completely, making it much easier to locate!

While my potential solution is somewhat simple, finding the culprit is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack. Good luck and please keep everyone here posted as to your progress and outcome.

I'm gonna buy Fred the beer myself if he's right but I'd like to know why "111"? I've got an ICP doing the same thing and I'd love to figure this one out. Yeah, Fred... I know, why didn't I call you?

We are gona have big party. I'll bring some Russian beer and solted raw fish to try.

Yeah, but that means everybody has to drive to Philly...

I had fake pulse dialing from a bad cable on sx-2000 . It was dialing extensions : 111, 112 and even 113. I programed an DNI extension with screen on that ports to catch the "thief" but they couldn't see the caller because it was too fast . In the end I've renumbered the 111 extension and I've programed 111 as a loop msdn call . This way I was able to track the "thief" with SMDR External, because we don't have SMDR Internal.
I wish I knew about this forum back then.

I'd suggest ext. 111 because the most common occurence is the series of pulses (translating to 1,1,1)would cause the display phone to ring.

uh, duh,... sorry

The way to determine the shorted station is set up an Illegal Number route in form 19 to and LDN on the console, the bad station/s will show up on the console repeatedly

Had a similar situation with a hotel. Couldn't find out which phone was doing it, and the manager wouldn't let us renumber room 111 or keep it out of service. So we made the room phone 555, made 111 a phantom, and pointed the phantom to a mailbox. A greeting comes on and says, "To reach room 111, press 3."

If a human doesn't press 3, (because VM works on DTMF, not pulse), then the call drops and VM hangs up. But 3 goes to room 111 (ext. 555). seems to be working.

The alternative was to rewire the entire blinking hotel.

I have had on occasion with different switches a problem with certain phones ringing in room and this was the cause, if the area codes in your area are for example: 306 or 403 and your room numbers are three digit and start with the digit "1" then there is a possiblility that when someone from a room dials out and forgets to dial 9 they dial 1306 etc they get room 130 or 1403 and get room 140. Just a thought. What are the rooms numbers experiencing this problem?

And Panda's comment is VERY valid! Last town I worked in had all office codes starting with 82 and no 8 floor motels, but b4 that I lived in KC,MO and 221 was a very active OOOLLLDDD exchange, with a LOT of commercial numbers, as in DOWNTOWN exchange. What A Nightmare. We usually were able to talk the motel into skipping that room number. John C.

Similar problem as panda and clightinghorse. Hotel had room numbers 180-189. Rooms were getting calls when callers dialed 1800 or 1888. Solution we used was to create ext. 1800 and 1888 on a non equipped dnic phone. Conflict dialing handled which extension to ring. If someone dialed 1800 they received a busy. Dialed 180 and the room phone rang. One thing that bit us was the voice mail. Need to add slight delay after message waiting dial string, so switch knew what extension was to have the light turned on or off.

Thanks everyone for ur inputs, sorry i was away for a while & was not able to post. Anyways i have got the problem fixed as of now, just enabled call block in room cos & activated it on console & it worked!!

I'm sorry mbtel, but that is a COP-OUT. I understand why you did it, but you gotta understand, there was ONE BIG PARTY hanging on finding the reason, rather than hiding it! Oh, well, guess it's just as well, haven't had a hangover in years, but, as I recall, they weren't all that much fun. Seriously, I'll be surprised if you can get away with it, once front-desk people realize that they have to set-up all room-room calls! John C.

you added call block for all the rooms? If so what happens when one room wants to call another..reorder tone.

Like I said, I'll be surprised if you can get away with it, once front-desk people realize they have to set-up all room-to-room calls. John C.

I believe call block will not fix the problem. You probably still have an station out there that is having troubles.

The way to determine the shorted station is set up an Illegal Number route in form 19 to and LDN on the console, the bad station/s will show up on the console repeatedly

have the "few extensions" been identified. If we know the extension numbers being called we may be able to help more. If they are legitimate extensions then they are not illegal numbers. If this persists and the numbers being called are the same always a display phone may help in the room being called, as a temporary trouble shooting option. This would display who is calling.

The system interprets shorts on the analog line as low digit numbers like 101,111,123,120. These rooms are getting Crank calls/Phantom ringing. The system will also interpret these shorts as Non existant stations I.E. 113,141 or 191. These will be Illegal numbers and they will be reported to the consoles LDN. And the station number that is shorting out will show up on the console.

I may be missing something, has mbtel informed us in this post what the affected extensions are? Also if this is miss dialing or hardware faults? Won't be the first time I missed the boat.

Panda, you've missed nothing, as far as I can tell. We've all thrown all the possibilities at mbtel, as well as how to detect the source of the problem. He has informed us that he Copped-out, and set up room-to-room call block. We all informed him, each in our own way, , that all he did was hide 1 problem and create another. I think he has decided to ignore us and hope that a sleeping dog will lie quietly, and not create a 'stink'.
If I worked in the Houston area, I believe I'd be contacting motel Mgr's looking for the one that has a front-desk crew that is REALLY irate about room-to-room call complaints. I can always use another customer! John C.

guys i havent copped out of the situation,if u read my last post carefully i mentioned that the problen is fixed "AS OF NOW" which means temporarily, i m sorry i m not as good as u guys but i will surely not cut corners, i was in dallas from last couple of weeks & thats the reason i just walked through the motel mgr. over the phone to activate call block. anyways that problem is taken care of now, it was a bad port on one ONS card & i really thank u guys for helping me find that,i had set up illegal no. route to console & we found calls coming from the fitness room on the console even though no one was in there.i have moved that extn on another port.i just did this day bfre yesterday so will wait few more days to see if that was the only port bad or not.

Sounds like someone owes me a beer (referencing my post from April 20).

I will buy a few beers if you ever get down here

Well, I guess I for 1 owe mbtel an apology. Here it is, I apologize for assuming you were 'blowing us off'. And once again, the real meanings of 'assume' are displayed for all to see! John C.

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