atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Toshiba Telephones & Systems No DTMF duing 2 CO Line conference

A pleasant day to everyone!

I'm Danny from the Philippines, and I presently run a call center operation. I recently purchased a Toshiba Strata 424 system and it has been operational for about a month now.

WE currently support a US based long distance company. Our operation requires us to do two CO line conferencing during a sale confirmation wherein the telemarketer and the customer must be bridged to a third party verification(TPV) system and key in information using DTMF.

The problem is, the TPV does not respond to the DTMF numbers keyed-in by my agents.

I understand that by default that the system is set for continous DTMF when calling from digital phones (DKT series) so I can't understand what the problem is.

I tried settings the DTMF timing to 10 milliseconds and enable DTMF return so we can be sure that the DTMF tones are being sent out but it still won't work.

Pleas help. Thanks.

Danny

Correction: I set the DTMF timingto 160 milliseconds. I apologize for the typo error

Does it work for your agents if they call the TPV without doing a conference?

Thanks for your suggestion. I learned a lot about the problem.

It works when TPV is called directly without conference.

I made a test by calling an office number that requires me to dial an extension number. I was able to key in the extension number and the call went thru, when I conferenced the TPV my DTMF keys can't be recognized. When the called party keys in the numbers the TPV recognizes the digits.

So it seems, the DTMF tones are not being sent out on the 2nd CO connection.

Any suggestions?

Danny

Volume loss is a common problem on trunk-to-trunk conferencing especially on analog trunks. The volume loss prevents the TPV from "hearing" the dtmf digits. If your telco provides a conference feature I would try that. A conference amp might work too.

DTMF is NOT enabled during a conference, nothing you can do EXCEPT try using a dialer connected to the handset outlet or next to the mouthpiece.

The Toshiba will not send out any digits, but digits generated from a 3rd party tone dialer will go through the audio path and work some distant feature but not a Toshiba feature.

You can Google conference bridges, the lines all go to a conference bridge and then to the Toshiba. They are not cheap but they work on most any system.

I think phonemeister (pardon for speaking for you) means what your telco calls 3 way calling and they may provide that.

If you make a call out to a customer and use the [flash] to activate conference calling or 3 way calling (same thing) you will be able to send digits as the Toshiba sees only one call in play. If you use the conference feature on the Toshiba to get your agent, the customer and another party or device on the call, you can press the dial pad until it wears off the tip of your fingers, it will not send digits.

I always bitched about this. The CIX does not have this limitation, but the conference on my CIX sucks, sounds tinny, and has a terribly annoying screech when one party hangs up in addition to not being able to release one of the parties. Oh well.

Thank you guys for your responses.

I am thinking of getting a conference amp but then it would be useless if DTMF is disabled on a conference call as explained by The Bunnie.

I'm just confused though, if DTMF is disabled how come the called party can hear our DTMF tones while agents press the keys(while on conference)?

Thats news, the people on the other side can hear tones. I know I never heard any tones when making the call, I never asked if they heard it on the other end.

In reality the Toshiba is looking at contact clicks and the card sends out the actual tones. The phones only generate contact clicks, not tones.

You can do an easy test, hook up a single line to the same dial tone you are on calling out. Once the conference call is established, pick up the single line handset and hit the keypad buttons. If the TPV or whatever responds then you can work something up to the handset of every phone.

Simple test, let us know. This is Rube Goldberg work if anyone doubted that.

If the conferenced party can hear the dtmf that you send then the dtmf is not disabled during a conference call. The volume loss on a trunk-to-trunk conference is the cause of your problem.

This is very interesting guys! Here are the test results.

1. I made a test call to an office trunk office number. When the system attendant answered I Keyed in the extenstion number to get to the called party. Call was answered.

2. Made a conference call by pressing conference and dialed the same office trunk number. Upon hearing autoattendant I keyed in the extension number. CALL SUCCESSFULY WENT THRU!!! Which means that I was able to send DTMF tones.

We're not yet done!!!

3. BUT When I press the dtmf keys, the called party on the second connection doesn't hear any tones. The first party can hear it.

I tried this same test to another office trunk number(different company). The second time I make a call to another extension while the first call is on hold, the autoattendant cannot recognize my dtmf keys.