sundance-communications.com/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Nortel Telephones & Systems Call forwarding to answering service

We recently installed a MICS and Call Pilot in a Doctors office. One "issue" is killing me....when the doctors office call forwards to the answering service during lunch, (phone company provided call forward) the operators extension 221 continues to ring, the call is forwarded, if you pick up the ringing 221 you get dead air... We've changed the AA to 1 ring as directed to by the Phone company who claimed the call pilot was picking up, didn't fix it. ANy suggestions?

Does that system have programming for incoming ring delay? What I mean is a delay for caller ID information to be captured BEFORE the system starts to ring. If you could set the system so that it ignores incoming ringing until after three seconds has elapsed, then the half ring sent by the telco when calls are forwarded won't be detected. Just an idea.

On CO call forwarding there is a 1/2 ring as the forwarding ocurrs. Your system is catchng that ring and causing your phone to ring. Changing the rings in the AA will have no affect on this.

You could DND 221 during lunch but check the DRT setting, it may conflict.

It isn't a half ring, it is six rings.........a half ring they could live with.....

Yes, John but a half-ring is detected as an incoming call and sets the system into a full timeout cycle. It likely takes that long for the system to realize that another incoming ring isn't coming in but by that time, it has hit the VM.

If you can set your system to delay one ring before it goes into normal call processing, that should be all that you need to do to avoid this problem.

True, the one-ring delay will be for all calls and at all times, but most people don't mind hearing one additional ringback cycle. We actually even have customers request this delay so it doesn't appear that they are sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.

I think you are missing what John is saying. The phone rings (1/2ring or full-don't matter) Call is being forwarded by Telco somewhere else. That should be the end of the ringing. BUT he says the phone keeps on ringing and ringing and ringing and ringing and ringing and ringing (6 times - right John?) and if someone tries to answer the ringing line, Humm, nobody is there. Sounds like a problem with telco still sending a phatom ringing tone. Did I say this right John?

You didn't mention 6 rings in your original post. Someone should test the CO with a butt set to be sure its stopped ringing.

Ed there's no way to delay the start of ringing on a Norstar.

There is nothing I can say on this one that won't make me appear to be a smart ass. And, I know telemarv is thinking of Norstar equipment and I am used to thinking of any way.

Lets assume that there is one or two calls at a time but the idea can be doubled or trippled.

Run the telco line one and line two into a convenient place, say the lunch room, and install the lines on two TK-6 (double pole, double throw switchs about $6 from Mike Sandman) and run the two lines back out to the phone system on the other two pair.

You can simply turn off the lines, no ringing to the voicemail, bingo you are done.

But say you want to be able to call out on those lines during lunch hour. Run line one and line two into two Radio Shack A/B line selectors. Output A goes back to the phone system normally and Output B goes back with one of the inline filters that sells for a couple bucks in office supply stores (meant to stop ringing from coming in but allow dial tone to pass through, an AC filter of some kind that will handle 90 VAC.)

When they go to lunch, they push the "B" buttons, when they come back, they press the "A" buttons. No AC ringing filter to the ksu on "A", no ringing to the phone system on "B".

If you wanted to get more fancy, send each dial tone into a 12 Volt DC relay on the center contacts (output) as you see them inside the plastic case. Wire the normal output to the top contacts an wire the AC filtered output to the bottom contacts that are live with the coil pulls the arm down.

Wire each side of a 12 Volt DC power supply to one side of the coil. Plug the 12 volt power supply into a reliable timer device that operates on times you set (old X-10 timer will do fine).

At 12:30 the timer gives power to the relay, the relay arm comes down and sends the dial tone through the AC filtering unit that is attached to the bottom contacts and goes out the center contacts. At 1:30 the timer shuts off power to the 12 Volt DC box and the dial tone goes back normally. You are looking at about $10 in parts per line plus the timer.

If this is all too confusing, send me a PM and I will send you a pdf of the diagram. A few parts, a couple minutes of soldering and Bingo, you are the hero. I came into this business when you had to do wierd things like this to get the customer happy, you were expected to have this all in your head twenty some years ago. They give you a Norstar manual but they don't teach you this stuff.

Now if the Norstar had a relay with a programmable timer...

Hmmm; yeah do that.

Actually do this instead