atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Nortel Telephones & Systems MICS PRI Receive, NO Transmit

Emergency call this afternoon for a MICS with 7.0, PRI and at 8:30 this AM they could could receive calls but not make calls. "Windstream" characters of "Paetec" were supposed to look at it and found "something" but nothing was resolved as far as making calls. They can dial a string but then it gives three beeps and nothing shows on the display.

They powered down several times to no effect.

They finally called me to come in and I swapped DTI cards (only one was active) and that had no effect.

I went through provisioning and all looked normal and indeed they were getting calls just fine, just couldn't make any.

I don't know of ANYTHING in software that would let people suddenly not make calls but receive them, they all have permission to access PRI-A.

From a request at 4 PM no one was going to be dispatched today and finally it was realized that Paetec was not going to come out but an AT&T tech.

I am 99.99999% sure this in a Paetec issue even though they say their stuff is PERFECT, does anyone have a clue that the Nortel could be burping outgoing calls even after switching DTI cards?

The really odd thing, all lights are off on the transmit and receive on BOTH cards and BOTH cards have a green power light.

Thanks, Bracha

Well, Well, Well.

Paetec said they could serve the customer BETTER by NOT coming out. Yes read that again. Then they said that they would come out between 5 and 9 PM but never showed because they sent the tech somewhere else (or that is a BS story.)

Then they said they couldn't come out because AT&T had to come out because they were not responsible and when AT&T came out he made a red light go out at the NIU and left but the circuit still didn't work. Incoming but no outgoing calls.

The customer agreed to pay to have AT&T come back but when the got there he wouldn't go to the second floor because it was good at the NIU and it was the vendor's responsibility to take it past the NIU even though AT&T extended it to the second floor because 90 days had past and they don't go past the NIU after that.

On the phone I asked him to label the NIU, he didn't bother to do that.

In the afternoon another AT&T guy came and he also refused to test past the NIU and adamantly refused to test the smart jack on the 2nd floor.

I explained that 80 employees had gone home for two days because they couldn't make calls out and obviously no normal vendor runs around with a T-Berd and his reply was that no matter what he was not going to the second floor, 80 employees or not.

So, late Friday afternoon I got in touch with a great tech who knew of another tech that had T-Berd and on Saturday he found the fault in the PRi circuit, repaired it and the customer is working.

I got in this business in 1984 and customers were NEVER treated this way. I don't understand how Paetec can ask for payment and say they serve you better by not coming out and leaving you out of service.

I can't understand how AT&T technicians belonging to the powerful CWA union can be so venomously cruel to ignore the fact that 80 people went home without pay for two days because a circuit was down that AT&T installed to the second floor.

Just my opinion but I think it is time for the CWA and Paetec to be dissolved, they are past their useful life.

I had a similar situation with Paetec and Verizon a few weeks ago. The customer had a PRI on the phone system and a T1 with a Paetec-supplied channel bank for their twelve POTS lines. Both went out after the major storms we had. A call to Paetec got the PRI restored within four days, but the POTS lines remained out and they swore that if the PRI is working, then it is their vendor's responsibility.

We showed up and found the T1 circuit to the channel bank to be out. We advised the customer to once again contact Paetec, gave her the circuit number (that they had extended up to the seventh floor a year earlier), and the affected telephone numbers. Still, Paetec swore that this circuit did not exist, they had no record of a channel bank on site and refused to send anyone out. Again, it was turned back to us for restoration.

After a second visit (and a week without service), the customer finally circumvented the normal Paetec customer service department and sent an e-mail to her sales rep. Within a few hours, after arguing that the circuit didn't exist, she finally agreed to have Verizon dispatched to check the circuit. Thirty minutes later, the circuit came up and all of the POTS lines worked perfectly. The culprit? "Someone" had placed a loop back on the circuit in the middle. I wonder who could have done this and more importantly, why? If this circuit didn't exist, why would anyone even bother to look at it?

In this instance, Paetec was the obstacle because they refused to acknowledge that anything was wrong, hence refusing to get Verizon involved. Once they did bring Verizon in, the problem was fixed in no time. That being said, it was Paetec's digging their heels in that caused the customer to be without service for so many days.

After service was restored, it was discovered that Paetec's records were in error and that the customer was not being charged for the channel bank. For this reason, it (along with the associated circuit) didn't exist. Fortunately, the customer was being billed properly for the associated POTS lines. Now they are seeking a year's worth of monthly rental and maintenance of the channel bank to the tune of $45.00 per month. Since this customer is a law firm, we are letting them handle the rest of this. We reminded them to seek a credit for the collective 14 days of service outage, which I'm sure that they'll be able to get with minimal effort.

If you haven't changed any programming, and they could make outbound/inbound calls before, then it is not the phone hardware. If it was the PRI card, most likely you couldn't get either way. Sounds like somebody was making changes at Paetec and screwed things up. Have them monitor an outbound call and see what they see.

A private tech who was a friend of one of my friends I called desperately looking for someone with a T-Berd tester went over on Saturday morning and the client opened up the office and the second room phone closet for her and he determined that indeed the trouble was in the wiring in the second floor.

No one can explain how the wiring went bad in the closed and locked 2nd floor closet to which only the firm has the key but that was the point of the problem isolated by the tech's T-Berd.

Paetec would not come up there, AT&T would not come up there, THAT was the vendor's responsibility as they said.

So, 80 people when home without pay for two days because Paetec and AT&T expect every vendor to carry around a $20,000 T-Berd test set.

I guess when customers are signing contracts for PRIs and T-1s they might not sign unless the NIU is installed in their phone room because from the experience of this customer they can't trust Paetec or AT&T to support them in an emergency.

The first thing I do on a new install is move the smart jack into the clients suite. Saves a lot of headaches down the road.

The few times I could have used a T-Berd, I've actually brought in a small KSU with a T-1/PRI board and used it to troubleshoot. So far, it's been all that I've needed. In your case, it would have allowed a test at the NIU. Then I could have done a local loop back test to test the house cable. Just a thought...

while not the most effecient way to test, I have to admit I have done it myself.

This is why I have stated that I think the carriers should be held financially responsible when all their finger pointing, refusal to troubleshoot and take responsibility has been documented.

All my experiences with Paetec have been bad, how this company remained in business before Windstream bought them out is a mystery.