sundance-communications.com/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Avaya - Lucent Telephones & Systems intermittant call routing issues

We've got a Merlin Magix here with T1 line. We have a block of 100 DID numbers plus several other phone numbers, including a couple of toll free numbers. The DID numbers correspond to extension numbers. It is my understanding that our service provider strips out all but the last three digits of the phone number which it sends to our switch. I also understand there is a setting in the Magix that automatically sends calls to a certain extension (or coverage group) if the switch cannot determine where to route the call. We have all this set up and working, but we seem to be getting a lot of calls that the switch cannot route. These calls go to a particular extension, which displays "???". The problem seems to be intermittant. A customer may call a DID number and get right through to the intended recipient and five minutes later call back only to have it ring at the "catch all" phone. It happens with DID's, toll free numbers and other numbers. It would seem that something is sometimes getting lost or jumbled between the incoming T1 and the Magix. We also have an Octel voice messaging system (if that matters). What should I try?

You have DNIS that you don't have extensions for. You need to ask your T-1 service provider for a list of all the numbers pointed to that circuit and make sure you have a destination for each one. A trace can be performed to capture those digits but its easier to ask the provider. If its a intermitten problem with a e&m T-1 not a PRI, I would suspect that your switch configuration does not have touchtone receivers available to read the digits. I would need to know your config and if you use Auto-Attend to answer calls up front.

[This message has been edited by gkar (edited December 11, 2004).]

Sorry it took so long to reply. I have tested the touch tone receivers and found no problems. Of course the problem is intermittant, so maybe they were cooperating when I tested them. However if the touch-tone receivers had issues, wouldn't I have internal calls being misrouted as well? So far the problems are only with incoming calls. We do use auto-attendant. Calls to a few numbers do get routed to the auto-attendant, which is part of our Octel voice messaging system. Other calls get routed directly to our customer service group. If they are all busy or unavailable, then they get routed to a "V-tree" on the Octel. DID numbers get routed right to the desktop phones, fax machines, etc. Since my first post I have made a new shielded cable and installed it between our incoming T1 and the Paradyne external CSU on the Majix. That had no effect on the problem. I have been in contact with our provider and our routing setup is pretty simple. They strip out the first four digits on DID numbers and what's left gets routed to customer service, fax numbers, etc. If there were something wrong there I would expect it to be a problem with every call to a particular number, not intermittant.

i would say start replacing hardware. thats defintely an hardware problem.

The Majix hardware I assume? Would the T1 card be a good place to start?

yep then processor

Thought I'd give everyone an update. There is another piece of hardware between the incoming T1's smartjack and the Merlin's CSU. It's a Vina Multiservice Xchange and is used to split the T1 signal into voice and data. At one time we were using a single T1 for both voice and internet and needed this device to make that happen. Now we have a second T1 just for internet so the old T1 is used for voice only. I talked to a few of our telco provider's gurus and found out the Vina box has it's own CSU built in and they had seen problems in the past when trying to pass signals through two CSU's. I cabled the Vina device straight into the Magix, bypassing the Magix's external CSU and my problem went away. Thanks for the help.