Hey everyone! First of all, this forum is a wonderful resource and I'm very glad I ran across it in my Google search. Now, my question:

Our small business has three CO voice lines through our local provider, AT&T. For the purposes of my question, I will label them as the following:

- Line 1 (XXX-1321) Our advertised main #
- Line 2 (XXX-2130)
- Line 3 (XXX-1149)

For many years, we had a basic hunt group set up on these lines. If 1321 was busy and someone called that number it would roll to 2130, and if both 1321 and 2130 were busy it would roll to 1149. The downside to this arrangement was any outgoing calls placed on 2130 and 1149 would show these numbers on a customer's caller ID instead of our main line.

We were getting ready to install a new phone system, so we decided to remedy the caller ID problem at the same time. I called AT&T, told them what we wanted to happen, and they set up a Terminal hunt. They told us we would still have three lines but only the 1321 number assigned to them all now.

So, they made the change and I made test calls from all of our lines (btw, we have a key system) to my cell phone and the caller ID showed 1321 on all three lines. Yay! Except...

Now the incoming calls seem to be switching which line order they ring in on. For instance, if all lines are free, the call will ring on Line 1 the first time. When we hang up that call and all lines are free again, the next call rings on Line 2. When we hang up that call and all lines are free again, the next call rings on Line 3. And then it starts all over again. Whereas with the basic hunt group we used to have, calls would always ring on Line 1 first as long as it remained open.

So, my question is: Is that the way a terminal hunt is required to work or can it be changed to always ring a certain line first as long the line's open? I asked a rep this question and she basically didn't know.

Thanks for your help!

No. That hunt called Circular. Means that every next call will come on next available line in the Group. That means that AT&T change the Hunt Group you are having right now from Terminal to Circular and has to be changed by your request.

I don't believe they had to change it to Circular Hunt to make the same number show on all 3 lines.
Terminal Hunt can actually mean 2 different things, which may or may not both be designated for the same hunt group.
1 The inbound calls begin with line 1 and progress to the last line in the hunt group and the hunt 'terminates' when the incoming call either goes to an available line position, or busy signal if there are no available line positions.
2. Lines are 'Terminals' with consecutive TERMINAL Numbers that are all assigned to the same PHONE number. i.e. xxx-1321, terminals 1, 2, and 3. The TERMINAL numbers are for bookkeeping purposes. If the repair guy has a report that xxx-1321 is open, he has to know which TERMINAL so that he can work on the correct TERMINAL.
And now you know more than you wanted. John C.

Thanks for your help.

When I call into AT&T "Terminal hunt" is the term they've been using when we talk about what we have set up. That's why I repeated it here.

I'm still confused though. Is there anyway I can achieve the following? Ideally, this is how I want the lines to work:

1. Outgoing calls made on all three lines will show up as coming from 1321. (This is currently working.) (As a reminder, we only have the 1321 number now. Lines 2 and 3 do not have their own dedicated phone number.)

2. Line 1 (1321) has priority. Calls will always start to ring on this line if it's open.

3. Line 2 has second priority. Calls will only ring here if Line 1 is busy.

4. Line 3 has third priority. Calls will only ring here if both Line 1 and Line 2 are busy.

Items 2-4 are not currently working this way.

So, is there some way to accomplish what I'm seeking? If so, what do I tell AT&T that I need? When I've spoken with them, they don't seem to understand.

Before you call AT&T again to have any changes made I want you to know something. I have been installing phone systems for years and on numerous occasions I have attempted to accomplish for my customers what you have accomplished here.

I'm serious! As soon as I read your first post I wanted to call AT&T to see if they are offering a new service as of late that I could implement for several of my customers.

I know you want all calls to come in on line 1 when dormant but don't tinker with this to the point that the single CID on outgoing calls is lost by accident.

Now as far as the CIRCULAR terminology. I previously understood that if you had Circular Hunting if a call came in on 1149 it would roll to 1321. :shrug:

I did exactly what "onehandoneheart" did with my CO lines. I have a main number and 4 other "random" numbers in a hunt group and didn't want these other numbers going out as our number on CID so I called AT&T and they changed lines 2-5 to "terminals". (term. 0001-0004). My hunt order is still main number, term 0001, term 0002, etc. It appears that AT&T has accidentally programmed your lines for a UCD (uniform call distribution) type of arrangement. You need to explain to them that you want your lines to hunt in a particular order (I.e. main number, term 0001,term 0002), not uniformly.
There seems to be some confusion with terminology here too. A "terminal" line is simply a POTS or trunk line (LS or GS) that is associated with a main number but has no individuality. It cannot be called directly. It almost always is in a hunt group with a main number and other terminals making up a "hunt group". There are a few different types of "hunting", "terminal"and "circular". "Terminal hunting" starts at the main number and hunts through all the lines until it finds an idol one and processes the call. A "Circular hunt" does the same thing but will "wrap around" from the last line to the first line if need be. A "terminal line" and a "terminal hunt" are two different things even though most "terminal lines" are arranged in a "terminal hunt" sequence.
Is that confusing enough?

Not sure if they do this now, but years ago, small town COs often gave terminal lines to businesses so that they wouldn't use up all of their numbers.

Thanks everyone for chiming in so far! I think I pretty much got it! Hehe.

tlb, of course, Wikipedia isn't the most reliable of sources, but I found an entry on line hunting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_group

To me, it looks like I need what Wikipedia calls "linear/serial" hunting. Does that sound right?

I think you are making a big deal out of this. Your problem is with AT&T. All you need to do is describe the problem and what you want to somebody with some intellegence. Tell them you want the lines to hunt from line one to line two to line three AND IT'S NOT FRIGGIN' DOING THAT! If the person that you talk to can't figure that out tell them to get a job with the cable company.

What you want is probably the most common hunting arrangement and is done at least a million times a day.

-Hal

I was always under the impression that if a call hit your last number in hunt and it was busy, the caller would get a busy signal, that CO hunt groups were one-way only. It makes sense especially in the case of the OP with only 3 lines. Line 1 busy, try line 2, line 2 busy, try line 3, line 3 busy, what would the purpose be to go try line 1 again?

There is really no need for circular hunting if all three lines are terminals. Since it is now impossible to call lines 2 or 3, the only time they'd ever be busy would be if they were hunted from line 1 being busy. This truly is a case of terminal or linear hunting, using terminals instead of physical numbers.

What is probably confusing this issue is the dual use of the word "terminal" to describe two different things.

what would the purpose be to go try line 1...

If somebody jumped in the middle of the hunt group. Say they called line 2 or line 3, they were busy but line 1 was idle. That's not something that will happen here but does with regular numbers and CID that reflects them. Somebody hits redial and the call comes in on line 3 because they were called from line 3.

If you only have three lines someone redialing line 3 makes you effectively have only one line unless there is circular hunting.

-Hal

Making the AT&T call and asking for the same old thing that is requested a million times a day defeats the purpose. You lose the service of transmitting a single number via CID which is what the guy wants to do and with good reason I might add.

You lose the service of transmitting a single number via CID

Don't confuse the issue for the OP. Any CSR with any intellegence should be able to understand the hunting problem and keep it separate from the CID/ terminal issue. It's two completely separate things that are programmed separately. My advice is to keep escalating until you get to someone with a brain.

This reminds me of when I split up eight Centrex numbers. Four stayed where they were and four went across the street to a new office. Verizon got the new incoming hunt groups right for the two new groups but for some reason they could never figure out the 4 digit centrex hunting. Intercom or do a Centrex transfer across the street and if the line was busy it would hunt to the next line which happened to stay at the location that transfered the call. All lines were following the old hunt schedule as if they were never split for Centrex. I gave up on that one and turned it over to the customer. I doubt it was ever resolved.

-Hal

I don't think confusing the OP is going to happen. He is having a beer somewhere in Tulsa laughing with all his buddies because he was able to accomplish something with AT&T CSR that several so-called professionals in this business (with 20,000 posts between them) got confused over. :rofl:

I have wanted to institute a hunt group that sent out a single number in CID for years. I have laid awake at night wondering why this isn't easy and now I learn that it has been possible all along, all you gotta do is know the majic terminology and get in touch with a CSR that also knows it.

I sent a link to this thread to a friend that is a CO Tech to evaluate. He said yes this is possible but he does it so rarely that he has to dig out notes. :bang:

I sent a link of this thread to the customer I have that desires this the most. His response was: Great, so what is next? :bang:

In the words of Rod Bloggo: "This is friggin golden"

Actually I have a customer with three terminal numbers. I believe it was done because the CO was running out of numbers at the time. They hunt fine (just like the OP wants), even to some regular numbers that were added after them later. Only problem I have with them is they all ANI the same so you don't know which is 1, 2 and 3. When I moved the customer to a new building I made sure Verizon tagged them 1, 2 and 3. Otherwise I would have to call them and see what order they hunted in.

-Hal

In some parts of this area, Contel only offered hunt groups with terminals. The customer got one main number (always ending with a 1) and the terminals were designated B, C, D, etc. Their idea of a "good" business number was something like 2141. I think this had to do with reducing wear on their mechanical switches. Even after they changed them to DMS offices, they still maintained this policy.

The wouldn't allow for hunt groups with true separate numbers without a major extra charge. They also required that all numbers be in sequential order. If a customer had 2141 as their main number and they wanted it to hunt to a real number, 2142 had to be available. If not, the customer had to change their main number. I know of a construction company that waited four years for the next number to become available.

At the same time, Contel would give the good numbers, like 4000 to any average residential customer out of the hat for their modem line.

Once GTE took them over, this policy went away.

Wow, sorry for the sidetrack.

There was a time when 4000 was a LOUSY number! Pulse-dial days! That's why ending in '1' caught on. And old habits are hard to change. Which explains why it took a decade or so AFTER DTMF was widely deployed, before any old number was considered suitable. And people started trying to spell their company name, or product, or whatever.
And I still get a laugh when the grandkids bring a new friend in the house that needs to 'check in with home'. I direct them to the rotary dial Trimline in the kitchen and the grandkids spend 5 minutes explaining how to use it. John C.