Analog DID Trunk "Your call cannot be completed as dialed"

[parnellij]

Our office has an old Merlin Legend system with two analog (wink start?) lines for incoming DID calls. The system has been running the same for nearly two decades and no changes have been made.

Recently, when attempting to call a DID number from the outside, callers receive a message "Your call cannot be completed as dialed". The phone company claims they found a problem and fixed it, but also claim our equipment is not picking up the calls.

My question is this: with analog DID's would you get the message "Your call cannot be completed as dialed" if your equipment didn't answer? My experience with regular POTS lines is that it just rings and rings if your equipment doesn't pick up. If I plugged a standard telephone into the line, would the phone ring? I'm trying to determine if we have (long overdue) equipment failure or this is a telco issue.

 

[montyzummer]

Can you look at it the other way loop an analogue station port into the line port and select the line or ring the extension number seer if the trunk gets dial tone or rings depending on the test you try

APSS (SME)
ACSS (SME)
ACIS (UC)

 

[montyzummer]

Also give the kit a bounce to make sure you don't have a locked port

APSS (SME)
ACSS (SME)
ACIS (UC)

 

[TouchToneTommy]

You can monitor the trunk with your butt set and see the call come in. The polarity lights will indicate the wink, you should hear the DTMF digits, and then the audio. Remember that the Legend is supplying the battery TO the telephone company, so if a cable splicer reversed the pair somewhere along the line, the trunk will no longer work, even though nothing changed on your end. The incoming calls should rotate sequentially between the 2 trunks, so if a call came in to trunk 1, the next one should come to trunk 2 even if trunk 1 is idle. Perhaps you can isolate a bad trunk that way. If you find one that does not receive calls, reverse Tip and Ring and try again.

Also be sure that there is a valid destination in Options/More/Unassigned so if you receive digits that don't match anything, the call will go somewhere instead of being rejected

 

[parnellij]

Thank you both for your advice. I meant to come back here and check after the first day, but got busy with other stuff. After having the telco out a second time and hiring a repair guy who knows these systems, they are both convinced that the problem is the other guy's problem. Vendor meet is tomorrow, so we'll see what happens

TouchToneTommy, that's very interesting what you said about the Legend sending battery to the telco. Your theory of a reversed pair makes sense. It reminds me of when I was a kid in the 80's and we moved to a new house with our original Western Electric pushbutton phones. When you tried to dial, no tones. The phone company came and switched the polarity and then all was good.

 

[KCFLHRC]

You can also put a butt set on the port out of the Legend and pulse in the digits and see if it works that way, it should, or your problem is in the Legend. Pull the telco pair off first then put the butt set right on the trunk card port. Then dial your digits

 

[donb01]

You might have to do the wink the get the phone system to take notice of the digits though. I believe you can do that using the disconnect button on the butt set and then dial the digits the system should be expecting.

Don Bruechert, Voice Comm Analyst II
CareTech Solutions @ Holy Family Memorial
Manitowoc, WI, USA