The landlord for our office has a small Talkswitch system in their office and they asked me if I had any ideas to address an issue that they're having. They have a Fortinet/Talkswitch CT.TS001.1 and are using a Netgear POE switch with FON350i sets, and four POTS lines.

Sporadically, they go to make an outgoing call and it never goes through. After a few seconds, the line just drops off. My first thought was that the first digit is being sent before the CO line is ready to receive digits, but the lines are fake ones (FiOS), so I doubt that's the issue. Besides, they never hear anything. Just silence until the line releases. I'd still like to see them insert a pause in front of the dialed digits just in case, if that's even possible.

The customer has used the system's internal resources to 'optimize the lines', but that doesn't seem to affect anything. He will reboot the unit and it seems to do OK for a few days. He has also upgraded the firmware. I don't see them having an issue with bandwidth since they are a relatively small operation. I don't think that the POE switch ports have anything to do with this since all of their other devices on it work fine.

Can anyone offer any suggestions that I might be able to present so that I don't look like a complete imbecile? I told him that I don't know their system, but the truth is, I don't have a clue where to begin with that thing.

I would tell him to look for support where he bought it.... which of course won't happen.

Explain the difference between real telephone systems and that garbage .... and on top of that mention that real phone systems have dealer and manufacturer support.

And end with .... you get what you pay for

Would he like to buy a brand new Talkswitch 848vs PBX? I have one for half price.

If you can be there when the problem is occuring, then monitor the line with a butt set and a digit grabber and see and hear what is actually happening on the FiOS lines when outdialing. My first thought, is like you, the problem should not be the FiOS lines. I had a similar problem on a Polycom system I removed and replaced with a real system. The POTS lines were Comcast, similar as they, also, are fake. The line was being seized, a ringback tone heard and then the call would drop. Comcast was there multiple times to repair the problem, replacing all their equipment, etc. to no avail. Before removing the Polycom, I just wanted to see if I could find it. The problem was the Polycom was inserting an "A" DTMF (outband) in the outdial string, randomly. This caused the CO to direct the call to some service that was anticipating more out of band signals. When the service did not receive the signals, it just disconnected. There was never a busy or fast busy or any indication that there was something wrong.

I asked a Verizon tech if he knew what that service might be and he mumbled something about Autovon, but I think he was clueless.

So, before thinking this is a dead end, monitor and see if you can detect something.

Rcaman

Sounds like sticky buttons. Spray some WD-40. Tap and scrape out the dirt around the buttons.

Does this happen on all the phones or just one? Switch around the phones, curly cords, POE ports and patch cords. Check the power supply voltage on the phone and the PBX.

Since rebooting seems to fix the problem, the PBX could be going.

Do all the dialed digits appear on the display?

Does the problem happen only when you dial with the handset lifed? Or only when you dial with the speaker on?