sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Not receiving all incoming calls

We are having a problem in one of our offices with not receiving some incoming calls. About half of the incoming calls are not ringing into the office, but we have no trouble making outgoing calls. The phone company has been there to check their side and they claim everything is fine. Everything inside the office has been checked too and it is fine. Any ideas what could be the problem? Thanks

TL a number of things can by causing your problem, we are going to need a little more info to try and help you out. what type of service do you have coming into your site. Is it a PRI, a standard t1, are these trunks or lines? or are they basic POTS lines? What kind of equipment are you using? If your vendor states all is ok as does your carrier I would suggest a Vendor meet to have both the carrier and your tech on site at the same time. Also would you mind completing your profile..thanks.

This is for a very small office. There are only two lines coming in and one fax line. These are coming into two basic two line phones, no key system or PBX involved. We had no problems for the first month the office was open, but then the problems started all of a sudden about a week ago. Outgoing calls are fine, but about half of the incoming calls are not received.

Have someone call you on your two lines, use cell phones so you can see what's going on, than have someone make a call when the two lines are busy on both numbers and see if they get an audible ringback on either number. They may have you built into someone else's hunt group. I assume your two lines hunt.

You get a maximum of 5 REN (ringer equivalency number or equal to 5 old Bell single line phones with ringers) and that number should be on the bottom of all non-system phones.

If you have 4 phones with a 1.0 REN (label on bottom of phone) and an answering machine/phone with a REN of 1.4, you have exceeded the 5.0 REN total and you may or may not get ringing depending on the tolerance of the 5 REN current.

It could also be that line 2 is hunting somewhere that you don't expect. Standard (but not foolproof) test is to get on line 2 and call line 2. Assuming that you don't have call waiting, you should get a busy signal. If you get a ring, it may be that telco has line 2 hunting somewhere.
Mike

I thought it was 10 REN

most non mechicnacal ringers are less than one REN anyway


try turning half the ringers off just to be sure .

if it turns out to be a REN issue there are boosters you can put on the line

call each line first make sure you get a ring on each line. It would be best to do this at the DEMARC. If you get a ring on each line then like everyone suggested try and call you first line, and put it on hold or just keep it off hook with a call on it. then call your frist line again, should ring on youe second line. again keep this line busy. then make a third call. you should get a buy or it should go to vm if you have that feature. If you have voicemail or recently added vm it may be a telco translations issue.

As far as I know, it has never been changed from 5 REN but you could be right for your LEC skip, there are no rules prohibiting extra juice.

The Viking ringing generator gives an extra 10 REN.

I'm just throwing in my best guess, not declaring a solution. Your idea of turning off half the ringers would be a sure test, good idea.

Telco came out again yesterday and fixed the problem. They claim "line issues", but would not elaborate. I was not on site when they arrived and that is the message they left with the office manager. Everything has worked fine though since they left.