atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Toshiba Telephones & Systems call route 411 to free service possible?

My organization has a CIX670 some CIX100, CIX40 and some older DK280 and DK424. I searched the forum before posting this to see if you can redirect a number which I believe should be easier on a system that can be controlled with eManager compared to the older DK systems.

Our employees are killing us with 411 usage (even though they could use switchboard.com from their computers) and the suits don't really feel like trying to drop the hammer so I am wondering if I am able to route a call to 411 to a free service like 1800CALL411 or disable it completely. I would prefer rerouting it because then I will start getting complaints from the execs when they try to dial 411.

With the money wasted each month on 411 across our organization (we're a 503(c) non-profit) we could probably employee a high school grad to be a personal directory assistance for the same price as what we waste.

Thanks and I anticipate learning some new features that I didn't know our phone systems could do in the future from this site.

I've done this before on a CIX using LCR.

For the CIX systems, if they use 9 to dial out, then are using LCR (Least cost routing) which you can modify the outgoing digits.

If they don't use LCR (dialing 9)on the CIX systems, then you can you could do a Destination restiction and not allow 411 to be dialed at all.

The DK systems also have restictions and LCR, but I am not as familiar with the programming of those systems.

Jas -- to the board!

Agreed - I would just restrict it. LCR might be a little more work. Look for the "411" digits, then use the Mod tables to strip 3 digits then insert whatever number you want.

Thank you for the replies. Just to give you more background I am more of a network engineer and deal with servers and workstations as my primary job function. I knew nothing about telecommunications until a few years ago and started by only learning the CF-BNA commands on the strata, since we did a few installs with a company with the CIX line to offer office to office calling over our mesh VPN as well as sharing our primary VM card to the remote offices my experience with eManager is creating station assignments, nodes and phantom DN's and multiple call groups. I typically tried to shadow anyone that did programming to figure out how to fix things I still can't get Network eManager to do firmware updates so I'm guessing that's a bug on Network eManager + Vista

Right now I'm more concerned to find out where at to make the changes under LCR/DR for making 411 actually dial 18002255411 and we do have a PRI so 9 obviously has to be dialed first for my corporate office, the rest are just POTS lines which require picking up a physical line to dial out. If anyone knows how to do LCR on a Strata DK series like what program # it is, I still have a manual to look up the instructions if I get pointed in the right direction. I really hate asking to be spoon fed so a readers digest answer would be helpful.

The only thing I can really contribute on here as far as Toshiba systems are concerned are if people need to know about trying to do VOIP on a VPN or sharing 1 IES32 at 1 location with multiple locations. Also I get mad complaints from users on the IPT2020 phones sometime echo or you can hear yourself talk which I don't know if that's a problem with the phone or the LIPU/MIPU because I try not to piggy back the computers off the phones so there wouldn't be network congestion so I keep 1 POE switch for phones and 1 switch for computers on separate Cat5e cables. I also tried to adjust the volume on the PAD Table and that doesn't seem to help either.

Thanks again

On either system, LCR will only work if the user dials 9. Otherwise you would have to use Destination Restrictions (DR). For DR, it would be as easy as going to the DR table and adding 411 as a denied digits, then going to the OLG and enabling DR

For LCR, you would start with digit analysis, and create a whole new routing table which would eventually strip 3 digits and replace with the toll free. It's pretty easy when you've done a couple. The first time for me seemed very complicated.
For the firmware updates are you talking about the CIX updates or the IPTs? For the CIX, the updates are in a ZIP format, not like the one for emanager.

Echo is a lot more common with POTS lines. The primary reason for echo is that the audio is going from a separate digital signal to a shared 2 wire media (TX and RX on the same line). The outgoing audio is echoed back when it hits the wire. One idea is to raise the PAD number, which lowers the volume, for the IPT sending to the trunk, while hopefully keeping it loud enough for the other person to still hear. It is less common on a PRI.

Even though some of our locations experience the problem with integrated access which segments 6 lines out of a T1 and terminates them to a 66 block that's what you're saying will cause echo as soon as it hits your pair instead of a complete network solution like PRI?

As far as Network eManager is concerned under Maintenance > IP Firmware Update > IPT_L/G/M Update it always just times out. I learned my lesson trying to update over a WAN that it's better to just upload the firmware files and deploy them from the SD Card but if you can't access the above menu, there's no way to deploy them once on the SD Card. Another thing I found is the CIX system likes to time out during IPT updates and likes to disable your LIPU if it didn't complete successfully I figured out you have to go to Maintenance > Hardware Info and Control and select what cabinet your LIPU/MIPU is in and click enable. I thought I bricked the system once until spending 3 hours to find the LIPU just got disabled.

I will try the LCR 411 trick today on our CIX670 today and then see what needs to be done on our CIX100 which don't require dialing 9 and then see what can be done about the DK280/424's because those are usually the problem areas with 411 abuse. I think I understand why you say it's easier with dialing 9 since you are basically access the system to make your call whereas just pressing the button of the line you want to use is just giving you access to dial tone.

We have been doing that for about a year now. It works great. I route not only the 411 call but also the 1xx555 calls. We use 800-373-3411.

What system are you doing this on and are you going through a PRI or POTS? I would seriously consider checking out 800CALL411 which is Microsoft's service and is very intuitive and doesn't sound like Max Hedstrom is talking to you like GOOG411 does.