BCM ATA Faxing issues. 1

[Pats14]

I have just installed a BCM 200 with a PRI circiut, and the customer has decided to reuse 3 old ATA adapters for their fax machines. The ATA's work on 1 or 2 page faxes, but anything above 4 pages the fax disconnects, and says the line is in use. Is there a ATA issue where this occurs? Or is there a setting in Unified Manager to extend how long a ATA can be connected? I have already set the ATA adapters to Telephone instead of Modem under ATA settings, is there anything else to do?

 

[BCMprogrammer]

I had a similiar problem using desktop faxing across a fractional PRI that had one of those 3rd party boxes that splits it up.

It had to do a slight timing issue that was hard to nail down with the Telco. So it was hard to get them to fix their box.

Do you have a full PRI?

 

[Pats14]

Actually, I have the same exact setup you had. I have a fractionalized PRI that is spilt up by a Adtran Netvanta 3200 CSU/DSU. The BCM gets 11 channels plus the D -channel and the data side gets the rest...What tests did you have the carrier run to reslove this???

 

[BCMprogrammer]

The information I used to prove it was a problem outside of the BCM, was archlog files. This issue had been elevated to Nortel level 2 support.
I dl'd these logs and FTP'd them to him and he made the determination. Also he talked with the telco engineers to let them know the results, AND so they wouldn't just point the finger back at us.

If you have copper lines you can prove that the faxing works across copper, thus proving its functionality.

 

[jdavid99]

here is how to fix this problem. by default the bcm sets the clocking to Master. it has to be changed to primary. this will fix the ata problem.

 

[acewarlock]

I don't know why Nortel defaults to Master because even in BCM school, they tell you to change it to Primary.

 

[senk1s]

another unrelated quirk
the softphone settings default to the M1 configuration, even when downloaded from the BCM ... probably getting fixed in 3.7

 

[acewarlock]

They also tell you to make stations from BUS 2 up and trunks from 7 down, but the defaults are the reverse.

 

[Pats14]

I took your advice jdavid99, (it was on a previous post in here) but changing the clocking for the PRI to "Primary", didnt change anything as far as faxing goes, they still ramdomly cut out...Any other ideas?

 

[acewarlock]

Try faxing out and backin to another fax at you location.

 

[Pats14]

Acewarlock,

They have two faxes in their office, so I was faxing back and forth. The real issue is that they have NO copper lines in the office (I hate when customers do that) I also hear pops on the PRI when I am on the phone...so it looks like I have a fight with the carrier on my schedule tomorrow...

 

[MagnaRGP]

Not sure if this is related, but there is a recently released T.38 patch which addresses issues including the seeming stoppage of transmissions.

I don't know if anyone realized this, but to completely patch an out of the box BCM to current requires 16 patches (!)....starting at Cumulative 2.0.

HTH

Rob.

 

[BCMprogrammer]

Yes Magna, I know that all too well, since I've had to patch 18 new BCM's this month.

 

[jdavid99]

did you know that if your build is 3.anything it already has cummulative patch 2.0 applied. you just have to apply the ones after 2.0. i know the wizard says checking for patches needed and then installs cummualtive 2.0 anyway but it doesn't need them. this is per Nortel teir 2.

 

[acewarlock]

This is whats on all 47 of my BCM's 3.6 2.2c 1 Does that mean I need cummualtive patch 2 on them????

 

[biv343]

Build 3.1a references a BCM with CP2 installed from the factory. A BCM that has been patched to CP2 will still show build 2.2c, although the patches will be listed in the Applied Patch Inventory page under Maintenance Tools.

 

[Pats14]

Well it turned my CSU/DSU was clocking off itself...a bad idea..but I thank you all for your info!!