sundance-communications.com/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Avaya - Lucent Telephones & Systems Partner ACS T1 module setup

Hey guys.

As you may have seen in the buy and sell forum, I was looking for a T1 module for the ACS.

Well, now I have one, and I'm a little stuck on something.

I have a test rig set up with the module in the leftmost slot of a 5 slot carrier, ACS 6.0 processor in the middle and nothing else. I have a crappy netbook running XP so I can use the remote admin software, connected to a USB to serial adapter, connected to a USR 56K modem. Sigh. That part all works.

What I can't figure out: I set up all 16 available lines, plugged a T1 crossover cable from my asterisk box to the partner. So far so good. If I pick up any of the lines on the T1 module, I get dial tone from my switch. What I can't get my head around is why the partner won't send digits until after like an 8 second delay. Anything I dial in the first 8 seconds is just ignored, and no tones are heard when dialing, then I can dial normally and the call completes just fine.

I want to make sure I get this right before I plug the module into my main system.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Something I just noticed, this only happens from an actual partner phone. If I plug a standard SLT phone into a station port, since it generates it's own tones, it dials immediately. Something in the system is preventing system phones from generating tones until several seconds have passed.

I've never seen the T1 module before, so, this is all guesswork. Could the system be waiting for more digits? If the "#" button is pressed after the last digit, does it make any difference?

No. It just completely ignores anything until about 7 or 8 seconds go by, then it works normally.

The phone registers the dialed digits on the display, but no tones are heard. Conversely, if I plug an SLT into the spare jack on a system phone, the SLT dials normally and everything works as it should, and the system phone display shows the digits as I dial them. I just tried it with another processor I have and a new 5 slot carrier and no change.

I think I know what the problem is.

I think.

My T1's are set to immediate, specifically FXO Kewlstart, and the ACS T1 card is looking for wink signaling. The line settings say E&M Wink all over them, and you can't change it. So I have to change the signaling from my asterisk box from FXOKS (yes fxo- its backwards in asterisk) to EM_W.

If and when I figure it out, I'll report back.

Signaling mismatch could, indeed, be the issue right there.

If its a signaling issue wouldn't the SLT phone have the same issue as the system phones?

I don't think so, and here is my reasoning.

The channels (on the span) are configured for immediate (or as asterisk calls it, kewlstart) as you would use with most standard channel banks. When you go off hook on one of the partner extensions, you are connected directly to that channel. The partner system is either sending or waiting for a wink, or both, and since the channels aren't configured for that (coming from the asterisk system) the partner never gets its signal that says "the channel is ready and waiting for digits". The touch tones on a partner system are not generated within the phone itself, they are generated within the processor or expansion module the phone is plugged into. Since the module hasn't gotten the "ok" to send digits, it won't send them.... until it just times out and does it anyway.

A single line phone, on the other hand, generates its own touch tones, needing only talk battery to do so. So you dial a digit, the phone dutifully does what it does, and it sends a tone down the line. My spans, being configured the way they are, hears the tone and cuts dial tone and awaits further digits, the number of which depends on the first digit dialed. (9 for a pstn line, 1 for c-net line, 0 for international c-net, etc)

The other thing I noticed which may or may not be relevant, I get a crap-ton of CRC errors on the span tied to the partner module. This tells me there are signals being sent that it isn't expecting, but I'm not an expert enough to know. None of my other spans ever have CRC errors or possibly 1 or 2 over a long period of time, but nothing significant. It's not the crossover cable, I've used it with my adtran channel bank and never see any errors.

Clear as mud?

I'm still waiting on an email from an asterisk guru to help me change the signaling on this span. I tried and screwed my whole system up. Fortunately I made a backup of the config file so I could put it back and get up and running in only a few minutes.

Linux and asterisk are like trying to learn Mandarin...

I miss DOS...

It's been a long time since I tested T1 circuits. I think CRC errors indicate a coding mismatch (AMI/B8ZS).

I am currently taking a class in Java* (not Javascript) and throughout all the material they constantly say, "its just like you would do in C++". Great, what the hell is C++? If I took that class would they constantly state: "It's just like Java..."

I miss the days of Unix.

*The class is online only, read the book, do the assignments then take the tests. Absolutely no class presentation or instruction videos. I'm just hoping to pass the class!