IP Office 500 call quality and faxing since upgrading to new internet circuit 4

[CorbinMyMan]

We have an older IP Office 500 (no longer supported but I may call old vendor if I can't get help here) for a small office (20 people) that we've had for a decade. It's worked perfectly for what we need. Back in April we migrated to a new internet circuit (AT&T Ethernet IP FLEX BVOIP service) that handles both phone and our internet. We've had a previous our AT&T circuit for years but we were due for a new contract so we went ahead and upgraded the circuit speed which required new circuit hardware.

We did the test and turn up and migrated all our DID's no problem. I plugged my IP Office into the new circuit and it worked fine, I could make and receive phone calls.

A few days after the circuit upgrade I got reports of degraded call quality, and I myself noticed a lag in between the time I spoke and the person I was on the phone with responded, a good 2 seconds at times. Then the fax issues were noticed. If we tried to send a fax (using the IP Office to dial a regular fax machine out, same way we've done it for years) it would only work maybe 10% of the time. Same with receiving, we would only receive partial pages and it would give us one of several errors:

:

Attached is a part of an errored fax, some pages may be missing. fax aborted by remote user, error (b4)  (I saw this a lot when sending myself a fax out of the ip office and having it dial back in)

or
:

fail - bad line conditions or incompatible fax machine, error (72

I called AT&T and they 'worked' on it for weeks. They would keep telling me to "try now", and "send a fax and see if it works". Whatever they did (on their end, they didn't touch anything on my network) helped a little, but any faxes that are a few pages or more always fail. At this point I think they've given up because they haven't updated the ticket in a while (the ticket was created a month ago) and our faxes still aren't reliable. For example I've been trying to send a 2 page fax all morning and it fails constantly.

My question is, could it be anything in my IP Office configuration that is causing this? Especially something that's maybe not configured properly for the AT&T circuit? Is there any way to test this? It's becoming increasingly frustrating as AT&T doesn't seem to want to help anymore.

IP office has a module in it with 12 ports on it in it, that's what my fax machine is connected to. The module is labeled "PHONE (1-8) 700417231". If there's something pertinent in the config I can provide I'll happily do so.

Here's some info on the new circuit from AT&T:
PBX Handoff: PRI
PBX Type: TDM
Routing Protocol: STATIC
Dial Plan Code Translation: Calling Plan C

This has to be related to the new circuit as the issue started immediately after putting it in. We had zero problems with faxes for almost 10 years before this new circuit. I'm hoping it's something that can be fixed in the IP Office configuration since AT&T hasn't been any help. Thank you

 

[rdoubrava]

AT&T issue

For testing faxing
on the fax machine
Turn off ECM.
Turn down the speed.
That's all you can do without AT&T fixing their issue

 

[CorbinMyMan]

Is there something I can say to AT&T to convince them it's their issue and point them in the right direction? Thanks by the way!

 

[CorbinMyMan]

Well I turned speed down to 9600 (even tried 2400) but with no luck, even with ECM off...

 

[rdoubrava]

How is the PRI service delivered?
Is it IP to a device that simulates a PRI?

 

[CorbinMyMan]

I believe it's an IP device that simulates a PRI.

In my demarc there is a cisco router that AT&T put in when we upgraded the circuit (they replaced their old one). From that router, one port connects to my Firewall (for internet) and another goes to my IP Office. I'm usually only responsible and privy to everything after that ATT router (firewall and ip office).

 

[qtelcom]

Get a dedicated analog line for faxing that is separate from the PBX, and "new carrier circuits", etc.., save yourself the headaches.

 

[rdoubrava]

My guess is AT&T is doing SIP to their router.
They are using G729 for the codex.

You need to find out if they support faxing on the service they provided.

 

[CorbinMyMan]

I would be surprised if they didn't support faxing. They have been 'working' on the issue for over a month now. In fact last night they did some work with brought down the router momentarily and then brought it back up. I then got an email saying "Try now" (that's all they ever say) and it still won't work.

 

[IPGuru]

using an IP smart box to convert sip to PRI like this s never a great solution.

if AT&T are going to provide you sip rather than a true PRI Circuit you would be better to itch the smart box & configure the Sip on the IP Office if at all possible



Do things on the cheap & it will cost you dear

 

[rdoubrava]

You have a lot of faith and trust in AT&T

 

[CorbinMyMan]

I've been on the phone with AT&T for almost 6 hours today, been transferred to 3 different techs at different tiers. Anything with more than 5 pages would fail. They traced the call and noticed it was dropping with a code 200 (successful). So they think my IP office is dropping the call before it's completed transmitting the fax.

We tried bypassing my IP Office by connecting a fax machine to one of the analog ports on the analog patch panel connected to my AT&T router at my demarc and that worked. I was able to send large faxes finally.

So I guess there's something in my IP office that is dropping the call?? I honestly have no idea what it would be and why it wouldn't have done so before my circuit upgrade. This IP Office config has been working fine for 8 years and the only thing that has changed was the AT&T circuit upgrade. They actually suggested just connecting the fax machine straight to this analog port on the analog patch panel, but that would render my fax server pretty much useless.

 

[joe2938]

I assume the fax is just an analog extension from your system, you do have this set to a phone and not fax correct, I know it's a fax machine but under analog settings make sure it is set to phone in lieu of fax

 

[CorbinMyMan]

Actually, when we were troubleshooting I noticed it was set to Phone, so I changed it to fax, actually. I should change it back?

 

[joe2938]

Yes should be phone

 

[CorbinMyMan]

Ok I’ll set that back. Thank you!

What about the modems in my fax finder? They are connected to ports on the same module in my ipoffice. Those ports are also set as “fax” in my configuration (these were set by vendor almost a decade ago).

 

[joe2938]

If they are working ok then I would leave them as they are, if not change the to phone.

 

[CorbinMyMan]

I changed them back to phone.

Still no answer or fix from AT&T. I received a fax yesterday that tried several times and ended up failing with the following errors:

[ul]
[li]bad line conditions or incompatible fax machine, error (a0)[/li]
[li]Your fax failed because bad line conditions or incompatible fax machine, error (72)[/li]
[li]an unexpected response, 'ERROR', was received from the fax modem[/li]
[li]Your fax failed because an unexpected response, 'CONNECT' after dialing, was received from the fax modem[/li]
[/ul]

If it's 1 or 2 page fax I might get lucky and it will eventually work. But any large faxes always fail. It connects, starts receiving pages, then drops.

AT&T seems to not even care anymore. I just got a call from an engineer who asked if the problem was still happening and I explained to him everything I just did here. He said he would get back to me.

This never happened before our new circuit. If there is a setting on the IP Office that is causing this that would help, but they don't seem to have an answer.

 

[VoIP Numpty]

Phone/Fax on the extension is a red herring - the Fax setting is for VoIP and you are all TDM - the VoIP is being done by AT&T and it is all their problem - UNLESS it is clocking, but that is also really their problem.

Have they said that they are providing a clock or are they clocking from the PBX? - with a real PRI it is not a question (it provides the clock) but there is no network synch on the VoIP that they are using to deliver your PRI now...
It will have to generate a local clock for your IP Office to use (like it did when you had a real PRI) - you'll hear bacd clock as clicking on normal voice calls but it will eventually kill a fax transmission.

 

[qtelcom]

It is your new VOIP based circuit from AT&T causing the problem, you will more than likely fight AT&T until the end of time, just get separate dedicated analog fax lines and save your soul.