sundance-communications.com/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Avaya - Lucent Telephones & Systems Partner problem or telco issue? - opinions wanted!

Alright anyone who is willing please give me their two cents. I have a customer with a good sized Partner ACS R1 and (4) 206 cards along with a Partner Mail. For months now (they have been putting up with it and just told me) they have experienced intermittent problems - maybe 5 to 10 times per week - which have occurred on multiple extensions and multiple lines at varied times with varied weather conditions. These problems occur on line and extension ports across the system and are not isolated to one card. Problems include - Dead air, Call dropped when answered, No one there when picked up phone to answer, I could hear the other person – they couldn’t hear me and they hung up, They could hear me going in and out – distant sound similar to cell phone, I could hear my voice echo. Telco is delivered via individual POTS lines. The telco provider has been out several times and says it isn't them. Any thoughts??

If it's happening on both outside lines and inside calls can't be Telco. Unless I'm reading this wrong. "These problems occur on line and extension ports".

It is always on an outside call...just happening on many different extensions.

The telco provider has been out several times and says it isn't them. Any thoughts??

Of course it not. Its never their fault. :rofl:

Only way you are going to settle this is to monitor the lines at the demarc. Since this is an intermittant problem its going to be hard to schedule a vendor meet, but at least you should be able to pinpoint it if you spend enough time. Good luck!

-Hal

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Intermittent troubles can be a bear. Are the POTs direct from the CO or do they go through local carrier. Direct from the CO delivered on cable pairs I would say it would be unlikely. The other question I'd have is this on local calls only? LD calls only? Or both? Also is it just incoming calls or outgoing too?

The only real way to prove it is from the DEMAC. I have seen this on LD calls when there is a carrier trouble.

ask them to keep a record of line , ext # and as much other info you think they will record for you

I usually ask the receptionist to do this and have folks report to her (or any other site contact )

you may find that its not as random as they think and you can isolate it to a bad module

I had a similar partner situation with the problem happening "all over " turned out to be a bad 206 and off course the ext where "all over "

ok I just re reread and you say it is over several cards

I would still get them to record it

I have ran into this before, I would set up some single line sets directly hooked to a lines 1,2,3 and sit them on a desk so they could pick it up when the problem happens which is much easier then staying on site to monitor when you don't know if it is going to happen or not. The reason I put it on only a few lines is in your case it seems to be happening on all lines so most of your calls will be coming in on the front lines.

Intermittent...a very unfriendly word to say the least...it takes patience, gathering info, and identifying any possible patterns (exact problem, time of day, calls to/from a specific prefix or area, etc.) When you mention "dead air", the first thing that comes to my mind is possibly one or more bad channels on a carrier, which means that the provider may indeed have a problem, even though your POTS lines may be OK. It's not fun, but you need to try to identify any possible patterns to these problems.

Does your customer have fax line thru system?If so remove fax line from system, using line coupler plug line and fax ext. cord together. After a couple of days,use fax log sheet to document failed calls. This can prove that its not system. I had many visits to customer with a channel bank before above method had ATX and verizon solve problem.As stated above documenting problem is key.

OK....thanks for all of the responses. Customer seems to think it may be on long distance calls only. They do have a different L/D carrier than their local carrier. The local telco seems to think it isn't the lines and the nature of the problem (on multiple CO lines) seems to back them up. Any suggestions on approaching the L/D carrier?