sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Telephone Repairs & Equipment PSET phone issues

I recently started work at a site that has poorly maintained copper and management does not care except to keep the phone service going (they do not want to pay for fiber). My experience and knowledge of pset phones is limited. Here are two of the major issues I am having there:
1) A pset line went dead and I called the provider to fix it on their end after I successfully tone out on the line on my end. The service I was told was brought back up, yet when I plug in a pset phone (Nortel, asstra, 5208, or 5216, etc) for example no dial tone. When I plug in a cortelco phone I was able to hear a dial tone (and get phone service). Why is that? Did the provider switch me over from digital to analog? How do I get the pset to work again?
2) A users pset was acting weird. It was going on hook and off hook randomly. It could not make DID calls, only outside calls, speakerphone will go on/off. I replace the unit 3x and still the same issue. I move the units to a another pset jack and no problems noted. So what is going on?

Digital P Phones and analog phones use different line cards in the CO switch. So you can't plug a P Phone into a circuit that has an analog card in the carrier shelf.

Item 2 could be many causes...bad cable pair, damaged jack/cords, bridge tap, two P Phones on same cable pair....way too many variables to guess what is wrong.

TY for item 1
Item 2: a) Jack has been replaced b) no shorts on cable

As for bridge tap and 2 phones on same pair how can I tell?

I'd take the set directly to the building entrance point and hook the phone to the incoming cable pair without having the house jumper connected. That would eliminate an in house wiring issue.

Found out the problems:
1) The providers EO card failed, yet they kept saying it was an CPE issue.
2) The failed card some how switch the users line to another using a pset causing the before mention issues.
Repairs are still ongoing.
Have another question I was using a butt set with a pset adapter and was testing one of the before mention lines and I heard three warbles each with a lesser tone, but nothing else. What does that mean? The users' line is still being worked on, but was curious as to the sound.
ty

Keep in mind that this is digital Centrex which is something you won't see very often (in my experience) so I don't suspect too many people here will have experience with it either. In my whole career I have never laid eyes on it- I assume it was sold in large urban markets?

Sounds like it is the predecessor to hosted.

-Hal

Hal,
I haven't seen a Pset in 25 years. I thought that the operating companies had discontinued the service years ago.

They are still in large markets and on military bases. I am working on a site now with 1000s of P Phones. Just a different flavor/name for Centrex. No idea on the warbles.. I have never heard that using a P Phone adapter.

My last job was an AT&T ISDN Centrex job for a NYC agency. Maybe 3500 stations, as I recall. We had a "butt set" that could emulate am ISDN digital phone. It was a little clunky, but you could plug it into the demarc and dialing a few combinations of numbers, pull dial tone - if the circuit was good from the co.

ISDN was different in that it was 1 pair from the CO and then it fed into local equipment on the floor and then came out as a digital set using 3 pair (Voice, Data, Power). If the service was bad from the CO, it was easier to use the butt set to prove the trouble.

I heard they went VOIP 4-5 years ago.

Sam

Hal,

40 years ago my buddy in Tennessee married a local gal. Her father owned the local independent phone company. On one of my visits there (I'm guessing 35+ years ago) he was pulling out his GTE Steppers and was putting in a Northern Tel DMS CO. A few years after that he proudly showed me his new (little) SLI that he was using for Centrex. It was a little rural farming community and most of his Centrex customers had 5-10 stations.

Whatever, it seemed to work for him.

Sam