# key on Option 11

[coniglio]

My boss has Cingular cell service. We have two offices, one in the 212 area code and one in the 914 area code (both in New York State). When he calls our auto attendant in 212 area code from his Cingular cell phone and presses # to retrieve his messages he has no problem. When he calls our auto attendant in 914 area code from his Cingular cell phone and presses # nothing happens. (he works out of both offices and has a separate mailbox in each office). He can't "break" the auto attendant in 914 area code. A bunch of Cingular users are having this problem, but only with the 914 auto attendant. Cell phone users who have Verizon cells have no problem. Is there ANY way this is a PBX-related issue? I have an Option 11 in the 914 area code office where the problem is happening, but again, it's only when people call on their Cingular cell phones. Thanks a lot for your help.

 

[roupe]

Ask Cingular if they are allowed/allowing dtmf to be sent from cellphone after far end answers..

 

[coniglio]

what about the fact that he can get through on our NYC 212 auto attendant but not our white plains 914 auto attendant?

 

[jgideon]

That raises an interesting question. I'm not sure about tdma and gsm, but on cdma, the DTMF 'touch tones' are generated by the MTSO, not the user's handset. It would seem that these callers are all being routed to the office closest to your 914 site, and the dtmf's aren't working from there. what kind of trunks does your 914 site use? Analog or digital?

 

[coniglio]

A) what is an MTSO? We're using AT&T T1s. All other carriers' cell phones can access it just fine. So who should I be calling? Cingular? AT&T?

 

[Nortellian]

cingular in white plains

 

[coniglio]

that's what i thought. But what does MTSO mean anyway?

 

[coniglio]

and what do these three things mean?
tdma and gsm, but on cdma

 

[coniglio]

Switch with auto attendant that Cingular cell phones cannot press # when calling auto attendant on is set as shown below:

EEST NO
EESD NO

switch with auto attendant that CIngular cell phones can press # when calling auto attendant on is set as shown:

EEST YES
DTMF YES
EESD NO

Can't get any help at Cingular. Does this help at all? By the way, I had a Cingular rep call non working auto attendant and when he pressed # he got auto attendant!

 

[jgideon]

MTSO is mobile telephone switching office (I think)... it's the CO for the cell phone. Usually one per market/city.

CDMA is code division mutiple access
TDMA is time division multiple access
GSM is Global System for Mobile

all three are different cellphone standards.

I don't do much programming on Nortels. I'd bet that is End to End Signalling. The old docs I have indicate that on a Nortel that applies only to outbound calls. If you're using T1's, is your answer supervision set correctly? I don't think that ATT allows a voice path until after supervision. Is there an ATT in the other location also? (although, if supervision isn't correct, I'd expect lots of other problems). Does Cingular have direct trunking with ATT, and that's why it isn't a problem for other callers?

Maybe we're looking at the wrong end of things. When these Cingular users are calling to the 914 AA, are they always calling from the same area, or from different areas? (i.e. could it be the MTSO they are originating from, and not the one they are terminating through?) Can the call another 914 based Auto Attendant from the same location that they can't call yours?

I know I'm just giving you more questions, but this just seems really strange.

 

[coniglio]

i know, it is very strange. And I just called CIngular again in WHite Plains 914 area code and sometimes the agent got through and sometimes he didn't. i traced the ports in my voicemail and saw him each time but I can't figure out why the # doesn't always work. Neither could he. I don't know what to do so maybe i will just worry more about this on Monday. Thank you anyway for all your input.