Changing Providers or Method of Connectivity 2

[DrB0b]

This might be better suited for the General Telephony section, and if so I apologize. We are restructuring our contract with our current telephone and internet provider. We currently have 6 POTS lines which feeds our Nortel Norstar system. Everything works wonderfully but the telco company, in trying to keep up with Mediacom's pricing has offered us to switch to an "IP Centrex" solution which they claim will interface with our current phone system but the receiving/transmitting of the voice data will be over the modem, and by default, and our overall bandwidth.

My two main questions would be, can this technology be interfaced with our Norstar system and will I need to do many modifications to our end of the system? Secondly, what is the drawback/benefit to going from POTS to Voip, in this matter?

Thanks for anything you can offer,
Rob

Learning - A never ending quest for knowledge usually attained by being thrown in a situation and told to fix it NOW.

 

[DrB0b]

Our internal setup:
MICS 7.0 - 32 current lines(I think)
CP 100
Phone T7316e


Learning - A never ending quest for knowledge usually attained by being thrown in a situation and told to fix it NOW.

 

[DrB0b]

I wish we could edit posts here..... ignore the "32 current lines(I think)". This was copied from another post when I was talking about 32 extensions. Sorry for any confusion.

Learning - A never ending quest for knowledge usually attained by being thrown in a situation and told to fix it NOW.

 

[allworxguy]

VoIP (SIP) must interface to your Norstar using an FXO gateway. This will convert the SIP voice paths to POTs lines for your system. Bandwidth requirements for SIP are about 120Kbs bi-directional per call.

Pro: cost savings
Con: raw internet is not constant and bandwidth varies. You may experience dropped calls when bandwidth drops.



Marv ccna

http://www.telemarv.ca

 

[DrB0b]

We had our switch over to the IP setup and all worked except for one thing. Whenever you call into our system, a prerecorded message plays telling you to hit an extension but nothing is registered when you press a button. Since our ISP had no idea what to do they switched us back over to the copper lines we originally had. Is the dial tone issue on my end and I need to change a setting in the Nortel system or is it something on the ISP's end? If you want/need more hardware info, I can pull the model off the "IP Centrex" boxes and we can go from there.

Learning - A never ending quest for knowledge usually attained by being thrown in a situation and told to fix it NOW.

 

[Multimedium]

Whenever you call into our system, a prerecorded message plays telling you to hit an extension

The message you hear could be the Automated Attendant in the CallPilot.

A way to find out is to make all your lines and all the CallPilot DNs appear on a set. Then, if you call into your system and you see that a line is in use and a CallPilot DN is also in use, you'll know that the Automated Attendant is answering the line.

 

[curlycord]

Also press the line that appears to be in use when you call in and see what it says on the display.

-Is it your normal recorded greeting your hear or some new greeting you never had on the lines before?
-This is not a dial tone issue, it's a DTMF issue and I am curious as to why the carrier could not resolve this. Perhaps their gateway is defective.
-Check with your ISP to make sure the connection is ok for voice unless the carrier provided their own pair/path to the building.

Did they leave the setup and a test number to play with?



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curlycord

http://www.curlycord.com

Toronto Canada

http://www.telcopc.ca

 

[DrB0b]

Thanks for the replies guys and sorry I wasn't very descriptive as I'm a bit tired.

The "prerecorded message" is the same one we have always had and is actually my recorded voice stating what to do. Then after my voice the AA "lady" says something to the effect of "Press the number of the extension you wish to use...". On our current Copper setup, everything works fine. When switched over to the fiber, it all seems to work fine except it never registers a dial button pressed and will then just default to the operator. Sorry for my terminology, yes I do believe it is a DTMF issue but was unsure if it was something I could rectify on my end. My ISP seemed fairly sure it was on their end but I wanted to have my backside covered in case them came back at us saying it was an issue or setting in the Nortel equipment.

Also, and feel free to tell me we dont have enough information at this time, caller ID is supposed to come with the new IP Centrex package. I assume since we didnt have caller ID on the copper line I will have to enable it in the Nortel system. Is that going to be a per line activation or is there a global setting Im missing.

Learning - A never ending quest for knowledge usually attained by being thrown in a situation and told to fix it NOW.

 

[curlycord]

You probably have regular DS line cards in your system.
2 lines cards in the KSU and maybe more inside any 12X0 (trunk modules) on the wall depending on how many lines you have.

You need to swap with cards that are capable of CLID.
Post the NT number of the cards if unsure what they are.

Programming would be under Sets in Configuration.
The line must be programed to RING to show CLID unless it is a transferred call such as voice mail.
On normal POTs lines like you are back on you will need to tell Callpilot to answer after 2 rings instead of 0 so it can capture the CLID sent by carrier between 1st and 2nd ring.
Once your carrier sorts out their issue it might send CLID sooner so adjust as needed.

"Did they leave the setup and a test number to play with?"
If they didn't then see if they can.

The tech can easily put a test set on the line and simply listen for the DTMF tone.
No tone means KSU for sure is not an issue.

Swap out the DS cards for CLID cards to to help in troubleshooting to omit blaming the cards.


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curlycord

http://www.curlycord.com

Toronto Canada

http://www.telcopc.ca

 

[DrB0b]

Ill get the numbers off the cards and see if Google can tell me if they are in fact CLID cards or not. If not I post the numbers and see what you guys say. We only have the two cards in the main cabinet.

Sorry, they did not leave a test number for me to experiment with. We do have the entire hardware setup installed and hanging on the wall but it is currently not connected to anything. Ill tell them to give us a number so I can see what is going on.

Thank you for the programming rundown, hopefully I will get to test this out whenever they figure out the DTMF issue.

Learning - A never ending quest for knowledge usually attained by being thrown in a situation and told to fix it NOW.

 

[DrB0b]

Two cards, both model #: NT7B75AAG. Google says they are CLID cards and there is a small sticker that says GATC2 CLID so Id say it is safe to assume we were outfitted with 2 CLID cards when they installed the KSU a while back.

So once we rock a test set on one of our lines and verify that we can hear the DTMF tone, I'm in the clear correct? That should be a simple task to see where the blame falls.

"The line must be programed to RING to show CLID unless it is a transferred call..." - So we have everyone in the building set to Appr Only on all 5 lines with the exception of our 3 receptionists. They are on Appr & Ring. Theoretically if a receptionist takes a call, and caller ID is set up correctly, they should see the incoming phone #, be able to put the caller on hold and allow someone else to be able to pick it up. If the person picking it up is set to Appr Only, will they be able to see the phone number since it was already registered by the receptionist?

Learning - A never ending quest for knowledge usually attained by being thrown in a situation and told to fix it NOW.

 

[curlycord]

yes on all

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curlycord

http://www.curlycord.com

Toronto Canada

http://www.telcopc.ca

 

[DrB0b]

Thank you very much. Hopefully all goes according to plan.

Learning - A never ending quest for knowledge usually attained by being thrown in a situation and told to fix it NOW.