sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services T1's, CSU's and DSU's PRI to POTS cutover during power loss

Hello,

We recently upgraded from our anchient Executone system with POTS lines to Shoretel VoIP phone system. We found out soon after the upgrade and $80,000 later that during a power outage these VoIP phones are worthless while the 15 year old executone hardware we had would at least allow for emergency phone calls.

I put together a collapsing DPDT Relay to latch and patch in a regular phone over to our main store number then found out that we do not have POTS lines for the main number, but that we have a PRI circuit that feeds the store numbers to our main Shoretel Switch from the T1 box.

Does anyone know if there is a way to tap my regular analog phone into a PRI circuit somehow during an emergency? Or would we need to call the telephone company to have them change the phone number translation from say 555-2667 on the PRI to the POTS line pair to make this work? During a time of emergency that would be a PITA and especially since cell reception is poor and Verizon is horrible with their support in this area.

We really need some way of being able to answer our main number during a power outage or emergency. If we ever had an electrical fire we would be in trouble, although there are a few alarms that can get pulled around the store by exits.

Thanks for your assistance!

Dave
IT Professional
COOP Food Store, NH

If I were you I would work with my service provider to see if they offer an emergency redirect service. This basically means in case of a failure your main number will be forwarded to a another number. This can be a pots line or another ckt. Tapping your pots line into a DID (PRI) line is not possible on site, you would need to call your provider, you are looking at two very different beast with pots and PRI.

Also I am just curious, why would you be in trouble if their was an electrical fire? (besides the obvious the place is on fire) Your fire panel should be feed by two pots lines, if the system was tripped the strobes and sirens should tell people to evac.

I wouldn't have an automated lifeline service (Firealarm, Burgurlar Alarm, etc) go through a PBX. You open yourself up to too much liability. There are also insurance regulations that can come into play (the customer's insurance).

I would seriously recommend you just have a dedicated pots line brought in for each fire-alarm panel, and whatever else needs that kind of service. The cost is pretty minimal compared to the PRI.

On the bright side, if you have an electrical fire your insurance will reimburse you for a large amount of the wasted 80 grand!

If cost is no issue you could use a product from Gordon Kapes. high priced PRI fail over gear

I was just made aware that one CLEC in our area is now charging the customers $250 for an emergency forward of your primary published number unless you have their "special" maintenance plan.

DL2007:

Not to rub salt in the wound regarding your company's waste of $80K, but shouldn't these questions have been asked BEFORE so much money was wasted? I'd be going back to the person who made this purchase decision and ask them what their solution is. There isn't an easy one. Maybe about $10K worth of good battery backup equipment might help you with your dilemma.

I am going to guess that this system was supposedly going to save the company money, correct? Not a good start to say the least. I really hope that the people who came up with this "solution" didn't include the alarm circuits on it. If so, you are also likely in violation of most codes for fire protection. You probably need to get working on investigating these issues sooner than later. Most people selling these "systems" really don't know what they are doing and make a lot of assumptions. The problem may be much larger than you think.

Some of the CLECs are offering their PRI service through soft switches that allow for automatic redirect upon failure of the PRI's connection. I do know that Paetec offers this service, but I don't know if they have a presence in your area. This is generally something that's offered in major metropolitan areas. I'd guess that your choices are going to be limited in seeking carriers in NH. I'd also guess that whomever made the decision to purchase the VIOP system also committed the company to a term agreement with the local PRI provider that can't be canceled without major financial penalty.

I sure wish that we had better news for you, but we've been doing this long enough to know better. For some reason, customers these days seem to feel that telephone people don't know what they are talking about. All we can do is sit back and watch while trying to assist in the aftermath.

DL2007
Have you contacted the people that sold you the Shoretel about your concerns?
That's where I would start.
But that's just my opinion.

So, now you are 80 grand in the hole to replace an "ancient Executone system" that did what you wanted and cost you nothing. Good move.

-Hal

Hello

Thanks for all the useful information regarding PRI and POTS cut over.

The Alarm is isolated from our Phones, so no risk there, but if there was a fire and it was electrical we would lose the ability to call out which is BAD!

We currently have some UPS's in place for power backup during an outage or if electrical fire in another section of the buildings grid, but kills main to building.

Fortunately we havent had any fires in the company and just have had lots of long power outages as the area has developed faster than the power grid in the area can handle, so power fluctuations, and outages have been way too common.

We have checked into getting a Generator installed on our roof, but they dont want a generator for just the phones and servers, but one that would keep the store running as well, but the roof would not tolerate that much weight of a large v-8 or diesel generator to pump out 25,000+ kW. Also because we would need it to be 220VAC that comes at a greater cost from what I heard.

I think we are going to just have to get the largest UPS's we can find and plug all the PoE hardware into these to keep it live during a power outage.

I was hoping someone would post that you could add this cool little box in series with your Shoretel Switch and the T1 PRI to tap into it on the main number of xxx-2667. I guess like stated, they are two different beasts!!!

Also, we were told by the company that sold us this hardware promises of it being able to run with a cut over on power loss and that has not been true. Unfortunately it was not a condition of the contract and verbal statement that we can not pin them down on.

Thanks,

Dave

There is a cool little box that will do that but I believe it's around $4500. It's on the web page I posted above.