sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Telco voice/fax detection routing?

Went to a new customer that has one physical line for her business. That physical line is advertised as her Business phone line. Now telco has a different number that is forwarded to the line and she advertises this number as her fax.

She says she was told by telco that when someone faxes to her "phantom" number, it will route to the fax machine. And when someone calls the phone line it will not route to the fax but will ring the phones.

This is not working and I've never heard telco offering a feature such as this, and I don't see how it's possible. She swore it worked before she got her new phone system about 1 year ago.

Has anyone heard of telco offering this? I told her we can put in a voice/fax routing device such as the Stick.

maybe the forwarded line is coming in with a different ring pattern ?

in our area Verizon calls it smart ring other carriers have different names for it and there are switch's that will route it

that's the only way I can see it working

Distinctive ringing and a fax can be set to pick up on the distinctive ring. Many use it instead of paying for a second line.

:thumb: Skip

we seem to be on the same wavelength today , Bill

Put your butt set (in monitor mode) on the line and dial both numbers. See if one line rings normally and the other number rings with two short rings. If so, look for a selective ringing switch on site - it may just be unplugged. Multi-Link's SR-2 works great in this application.

I didn't even know they made a switch for distinctive ring. The only ones I've been involved with it was an option in the fax itself. So I'd assume the switch is for faxes that don't have that option.

the last one used was a command communications cs5500 ,I used that for a gas staion where they needed a number to call into to check the tanks

I used one here for a long time , in fact it may still be hooked up in the back room

when the kids got to teenage years we let them have the home phone number and grabbed a smart ring number for ourselves the main line rang their rooms the smart ring went to us

I guess I've never looked, I didn't know the line share by command communications even did distinctive ring detection. Learn something every day.

Curiosity got the best of me and I looked in the users manual for the comswitch 5500, bigger than Dallas on the last page it tells you how to turn distinctive ring detect on and off. Never had the need for it so never looked.

Thanks for the info Skip and BobRobert, sure would be a lot nicer set up than doing it at the fax. :thumb:

We have used the RD4000 Ring Decipher box (also by Command Communications) in several applications, and it seems to work very well. I'm not sure if it's available anymore. We used them extensively in retail stores and restaurants where the normal ring went to the fax and the stutter ring went to the POS system for automated polling.

But if she has two different numbers ringing in on one line, then I don't think there's a switch on site, right? I'll check the distinctive ring and see if telco is sending that.

Many voicemail systems have fax detection built in as well. I have customers who use their "fax line" as an outboud voice trunk during the busy times, yet calls to either the specific non-hunting number OR the published main voice number automatically route inbounds to a fax machine (analog extension) if the CNG tone is heard. Full=time AA answer is pretty much required for this scene.

You sure this isn't a case where the digits on inbound DID calls are being manipulated?

There are many types of "Distinctive Ring" switches out there. Their main advantage is by placing them ahead of a system, if it's the 2nd number on that line, it goes to THAT item only. Same principle a s a fax switch.

I use the Ultracom switches:

"Model 100" for faxes,
"Model 200" for Distinctive ring or can be used to share a line between several users. ie: main goes to the "house", 1st D/R goes to son, 2nd to daughter, etc.
"Model 400" for auto-line select. Great for business that have multiple line needs for POS terminals, faxes, system & other needs.

Link

To 94astro: I would check their fax settings. Most likely, someone has played with them and turned off the D/R feature.

have you tried calling the telco and asking them how it works ?

There's no voice mail to do the fax detection. I called her and told her to try to find out from telco how they are doing fax detection. You guys are probably right that it's a distinctive ring coming in from telco. I'll let you know.

She probably isn't saving that much money having the 2 lines combined into one. Will she be able to have 2 calls going at the same time?

No, but it's much cheaper than a second line.

Ditto...around here the Distinctive Ring number is somewhere around 5 bucks a month...