Merlin Legend PRI and Adtran Atlas 550

[daw6712]

Well as they say change is the only thing that is a constant. The good folks at Charter Business services have come in and convinced the powers that they can save us a ton of money by selling us WAN and PRI telephone services. After contracts are negotiated and signed they tell me that they can only deliver the PRI's with switch type NI-2. I expressed my concerns very strongly that the Merlin legend will not work that way 'Please" deliver me a Switch Type AT&T Custom 5ESS I set mine for 5ESS and everybody will be happy. No can do they say NI-2 only but they say I can buy a Adtran Atlas 550 and put Switch type NI-2 in and get 5ESS out. That does not compute. I have read the Atlas 550 user manual it does not indicate that to me at all. What did I miss.

So to the all knowing gurus of the Merlin Legend/Magic forum what say you?

Thanks for any help.
You got Show me in Tennessee

Dave Wood
Information Management
Network/Systems Administrator

 

[merlinman]

The Legend/MAGIX MUST HAVE NI-1 - Otherwise this simply WILL NOT WORK, and you will be left with NO SERVICE AT ALL!! - I haven't heard of this "hand off" through something else to make this happen, but if anyone else has, please jump in.

http://home.comcast.net/~merlinman

-merlinmansblog.blogspot.com

 

[CarGoSki]

dont know but some highlights from the manual:

ISDN Switch Types
• 5ESS™, DMS-100™, National ISDN, 4ESS™, EuroISDN

Dual/Quad T1/PRI Option Module (P/N 1200314L1/L2 and 1200755L1/L2)
The Dual/Quad T1/PRI Module provides two or four channelized T1 or PRI interfaces. Each interface can
operate independently in DS-1 or DSX-1 mode, and any port can deliver timing for the system.


Dont really see where you can set CO or CPE for the line although I have not read the entire doc.
So it may be possible.

 

[meyer1y2k]

The Adtran 550 will work perfectly for this. We had to use one for this very reason. When you buy a new one it comes with a T1 Network card. Make sure you order a second card for the Network 2 slot. You now have an interface for the Telco and the Merlin. You will be able to set the Telco side to NI2 and the Merlin to 5ESS and it will work fine.

Adtran tech support will walk you through doing this if you have never worked with it before. They are very patient and will get you up and running.

Have a list of DNIS ready since the Adtran will need to be programmed to route the incoming DNIS from the Telco to the CPE (Merlin) side. You can do wildcard matching so if you have a block of 100 contiguous numbers, you can cover with 1 dial plan entry. In the Dial Plan, you set the protocol for each interface.

You can access the box via Telnet or the serial connection. You will rarely need to fuss with this after it is working so make sure to take a backup of the config (via TFTP) once you have everything up and running.

It WILL work. I have done it and seen it many times. In fact we had a customer that had a 5ESS ISDN and the PBX could not do that. The mighty 550 saved the cut and the customer was working perfectly fine until the circuit was changed.

Mike

 

[daw6712]

Thanks Mike
After making myself a member over on the Adtran forum I found those folks to be very helpful and now with your post I feel more confident I can get the old Merlin Legend to work with the Atlas 550 "translating between NI2 and 5ESS we're gonna try it in a couple of weeks at this site then I'll try it on the the other two sites.
If successfull I'll have 5 PRI 's running NI2 translating to the Merlins 5ESS.
Thanks for your input.
I'll post my results.
My boss says he not paying for the Atlas 550 s Charter Business gonna have to give us some more consideration or pay for the 550 s cause AT&T still delivers AT&T Custom 5ESS.
Thanks

Dave Wood
Information Management
Network/Systems Administrator

 

[meyer1y2k]

I hope you get the chance to do this. Charter might end up not liking you since, if there are issues with the circuit, you can actually determine which side is at fault and why. If you have any questions feel free to post...

Mike