One-Sided Fade Outs on IPO4 5

[573dawn]

Hi All, new thread for a not-so-new problem. I'm sure some of you are well aware of my dropped call issues. Afte changes made today, we are getting fewer drops, though not eliminated. However, we have this new problem: The call will "fade out" while you are on the phone. It doesn't drop, but one or the other party will get silence, while the remainign party can still hear the opposite party. This lasts a few seconds and then both parties can hear each other again.

In Monitor I can see:

********** contact lost with 192.168.3.180 at 14:13:28 6/7/2007 - reselect = 2178 **********
******************************************************************


********** SysMonitor v6.0 (5) **********

********** contact made with 192.168.3.180 at 14:13:28 6/7/2007 **********

********** System (192.168.3.180) has been up and running for 2days, 22hrs, 34mins and 31secs(254071121mS) **********

Along with the occasional dopped packets. But these calls DON'T disconnect, just fade in and out.

 

[573dawn]

tlpeter, thanks! I will leave it alone.

 

[573dawn]

Well, nothing seems to have helped. We are reinstalling POTS lines at my most troubled location just to alleviate the serious issues this has all caused with our customers.

If anyone has any other ideas though, I'm all ears!

Thanks, Dawn

 

[aarenot]

Dawn,
You should really call your vendor, and tell them to come out, and fix it. If they give you the BS saying it is your network, then tell them that the network assessment that they did, and Avaya requires should mean that the network is not the issue. If the network would not handle this application the network assessment should have made that clear prior to the implementation. If the network is the issue, then you would like to see the network assessment data they collected so you can have it evaluated independently. Also, so you can speak with Avaya directly with your independent assessment of your network assessment. Otherwise, get it fixed NOW! The next step will be calling Avaya directly yourself.

There is no excuse for not doing the network assessment, and then stopping anywhere short of making it work on the vendors part, regardless of what that means they have to do. I hope you have not paid for this system yet since it is not working yet!

 

[PlatinumGuy]

Hee hee, network asessment, thats a good one.

Ive heard of these mythical network asssesments!





ACA - IP Office Implement
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[Gibsonic]

ive got two rusty cans and a string if you need them dawn.

let me throw in a lil anecdote that may be of some value...

at a previous job, i had two definity systems networked across town via a point to point T1. The remote site had some analog trunks for backup but we were sending inbound DID's and outbound local and LD calls over that P2P T1.

The remote site is out in BFE and the building was older than moses, as was the cabling to and inside the building.

We had an additional frame-relay circuit at the remote location as well.

Well one day we started having dropped calls and then some calls with funky garbled sounds on the line...and some how crosstalk from one channel on the P2P to another...that one still blows me away.

Anyway, we first had the telco come test the circuit at the remote site. Ran clean. Ran test at host site. ran clean. Tested and busy-out T1 cards at both ends. no better. So we had them test the circuit again. ran clean. so we started swapping T1 cards, cables to the DMARC, CSU's etc. no better. I engaged avaya maintenance had them dial-in, do additional testing, verify the config, etc. They said it had to be the CO. So we had them test again. ran clean.

All this happened over the course of almost A YEAR. The problem was so intermittent that the remote site just sorta learned to deal with it.

One day it got to be enough and they started griping to me again about it. To my wits end i called a buddy and he suggested that I get the CO to come out again, but to request they leave the T-bird test equipment on the circuit for a full day.

Before, they would run the basic test from the CO, loop the smart jack and call it good.

Well we got the CO out and what do ya know about every 2-3 hours the circuit was dropping the D-channel. The replaced smart jacks at both ends. no better.

Ultimately they had to pull a new bundle from the closest POP into the building b/c the old wiring couldn't get enough clean pairs to run the circuit on.

moral of the story. don't let problems go forever and don't let the CO off the hook so fast. there is always more they can do.

 

[aarenot]

PlatinumGuy,
Your right, network asessments are not needed, or required by Avaya for support in north America. They are laughable, and a figment of my imagination. The BP should not have even done one in the first place, right?

 

[PlatinumGuy]

Dont get me wrong, i am not saying your comment is wrong.

I am merely stating that if all resellers abided by the book the world would be a much better place.

I am not saying network assessments are not required, on the contrary i agree with you, they should be mandatory and would cut out some of the problems before they even managed to crop up.

You try telling that to a reseller though who is trying to shoe horn an IPO into a site on a string of a budget. I mentioned a network assessment to a reseller last week and he laughed at me.

If my attitude came across as smart arse i apologise, im on your side!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ACA - IP Office Implement
ACS - IP Office Implement
ACE - IP Office Implement
ACI - IP Office Implement

 

[aarenot]

I was baiting you a bit PlatinumGuy, and am in no way anything except a smart arse, so no worries.

I have to admit, there are BP's I am aware of that have skipped NA's on in house projects sometimes, as well as for ones subcontracted to them by other BP's.
Since leaving the BP I worked for, and doing independent contracting I have traveled about North America, and seen some NA's not done prior to implements as well. It happens, many times without issues, but I do not condone it, nor does Avaya. When that risk is taken by a BP, the BP really should make good on getting it up and working anyway!

 

[PlatinumGuy]

Well i can say in my experience, in the UK network assessments are not done.

You probably will find in the larger sites that they are done but your average joe will not do them over here.

Nowadays we are moving more IP stuff so the network assessment becomes more and more critical but say that to a reseller in the uk and you will get laughed at. They would rather cross their fingers and hope for the best.

Sad but true.



ACA - IP Office Implement
ACS - IP Office Implement
ACE - IP Office Implement
ACI - IP Office Implement

 

[aarenot]

I will not go against Avaya on this one, and say there is a time a NA should not be done. That said, I never really complained about a lack of NA when phone manager was the only thing going over the network, and the VMPRO is plugged straight into the IPO LAN port. Start adding more than that like Dawn has, and it is just reckless to skip the NA.
On the other hand, I can see the sales guy's, BP's point in that it is their risk to take. If they want to roll the dice with their reputation with the customer, their own techs, other vendors involved, the possible lost revenue for their customer that is their choice. However, if they roll the dice, and do not do the NA, they have then certified the network passed the NA themselves, and are responsible to do what it takes to make the network perform, or make the IPO perform on the network. If they have to replace a customers data switch because the existing wont cut it, they should absorb that cost.

 

[aarenot]

O.K. I am sure I have probably upset at least one BP with that comment, and that is not my intent. Those who own a BP are risk takers to begin with, they are not adverse to taking risk, or they would be getting a paycheck not profits. It may even be that some have skipped the NA's for dozens of IPO's, and had no issues. If that is the case, that is not an argument against my point, it is support for it. Since you saved all that cost not doing NA's, you can afford to spring for whatever it takes to make the one that has issues work out of your profits.

 

[573dawn]

Hi Guys, and thanks for keeping the thread going in my absence, had some heavy outdoor work yesterday (new dock!!).

Anyway, as we well know there was no NA done here, and I have been explicitly told by my BP that MY network is not THEIR responsibility, and never was.

We had 4 POTS lines put in yesteday at that site and I THINK the BP is paying for them for now. Meanwhile the ATT area manager and I talked for a couple hours yesterday and he wants to put a t-bird on the circuit (called it an analyzer, guess he didn't think I'd know the term t-bird, unless he's using something I haven't heard of) I recommended that they DO analyze for more than a few minutes at a time, but don't know if they will. He seemed to think that 15 minutes of "agressive signalling" was sufficient. I don't, so I asked for more. We'll see what actually happens.

btw, Gibsonic, your story sounds alot like what I am dealing with. I am amazed that after 2 MONTHS, ATT STILL hasn't gotten anyone to go out and fix that damaged pedestal at that site. It is my understanding that they were out there wiring pairs under the trashbag that still covers the damaged pedestal...meanwhile, I'm ready to trash the whole system.

It is paid for on a contract, but assuming contractual obligations include a working system, we might be able to get out of it. At least the POTS lines will take some of the pressure off of our employees and customers.

 

[Gibsonic]

what ATT region are you in? legacy-bellsouth, legacy-sbc? did you buy your IPO from ATT?

 

[573dawn]

Gibsonic, I am SBC legacy, Mid-Missouri. And we bought the IPO from a local small telco company. Interesting story. Apparently the local company was being well run, until the owner and his wife started a divorce.

The details are unclear, but the owner, in a fit of drunken despair, climbed a cell tower and then couldn't get off. He allegedly called a friend and asked the friend to come and help him. By the time the friend got there, he had either jumped or fallen to his death. The wife then got everything, including the small telco company, which from the scuttlebut here has resulted in a deterioration of the quality provided by this company. (can ya tell this is a rural area? <g>)

 

[Gibsonic]

wow. quite a story there. sounds like a jeff foxworthy joke gone bad. "Hey ya'll! watch this!"

i live south of the mason-dixon line myself so i can relate.

btw, ATT does sell and service IPO's in your area.

 

[573dawn]

Gibsonic, yep, it DOES sound that way. I used to work for Sprint and one night there south of the MD line, we had a backwoods switch go down. Turns out some good ole boys decided to use the building for target practice and severed the lines into the building with bullets.

We seem to have some backwoods thinking down here too. I mean, how many places can you think of where a brush hog chops up a telco pedestal, they cover it with a trash bag and just leave it that way? We have wondered if this contributes to these issues.

The strangest thing in all of this though is the apparent loss of contact with the DS at the remote site when these fade outs occur. I was talking to someone over there and it happened to us while I was staring at monitor and clearly the contact was lost, same message as the first post on this thread. It lasted less than a second if you believe monitor, although 3 seconds is about the actual time. But the call wasn't LOST, just dead on one end whil live on the other. It sounds so very network linked, but then why didn't the call drop altogether? Why did monitor show contact lost and regained in the same second? Could this be packet loss? I see no packet loss. Very very frustrating and confusing.

 

[Gibsonic]

is the point to point t1 running PRI or is it traditional T1 in-band signaling?

kind sounds like a duplex issue either on one leg of your ethernet LAN or some sort of misconfiguration for wink/start etc. on the T1, if it is a T1.

If PRI, and the problem resides on the PRI, both sides of the conversation should drop in that B-channel b/c if the D-channel drops, it drops it all.

If PRI, be sure to have the test the D-channel very thoroughly.

back to the duplex thing. are your lan ports set to 100 Full duplex?

 

[573dawn]

Gibsonic, I have traditional signalling on the PTP. Cisco 1720/21 on each end, then to avaya p133gt2 switch, then on to the DS units. I have data and voice on the PTP, but it is not optimized for voice traffic. I would optimize for it if I knew how. I can do cisco, but for data only, no background in voice, and never had to deal with priority packets or traffic shaping.

As for the duplex, everything should be set to auto-negotiate, but I have just discovered that the p133gt2 out there for some unknown reason won't let me log onto it. I am going to have to go out there with a console cable.

Meanwhile, I just got a very interesting email from my BP, he said ATT showed up and had this to say at that site:

"you need to install a 6 gauge bare copper solid ground to the T-1 Dmark at the 21MM. The one there now is a 12 Gauge jacketed ground. It needs to go to the building electrical ground. They said it is on our company side of liability not theirs and that a qualified electrician needs to install it. "

great....

 

[aarenot]

HAVE THEM RUN THE t-BIRD FOR 24 HOURS, SINCE THE ISSUE IS NOT CONSTANT, A LIMITED TEST IS NEARLY USELESS.

 

[573dawn]

aarenot, I have asked them to do just that. Hopefully they actually will. I have no way to check on them though