Outbound Calls Receive Busy Signal but Inbound Calls Work Normally

[jokermia]

These locations are all Essential Edition, anywhere from R8.1 to R11.1, 9508 phones. In addition, it's at multiple customer locations around the country.

Incoming calls ring in normally, but all outbound calls receive a fast busy. The outbound calls go out normally at the DMARC from a tech's butt-set, but as soon as the lines are plugged back into the IPO all outbound calls get a busy signal. Unused trunk ports on the Combo Card have been tried without success, new Combo Cards have been installed without success, and the old Combo cards pulled from the system have been tested once received back and work as they should. There are no lines tied up, no alarms are being given off in System Status, and there have been no programming changes - outgoing calls just suddenly start receiving the fast busy.

A LEC tech told me that it's a programming issue at the Central Office, but of course then the LEC says there's NTF and the calls work at the DMARC so it must be the phone system. Usually the problem disappears once the LEC ticket is escalated, so I always assumed that LEC tech was correct and the LEC figured it out on their end.

Any ideas on the actual issue? Should I run SysMonitor, and if so what should I be looking for?

 

[snowman50]

If this the same issue on multiple system around the country maybe your company has done a programme change.

Or are you using a routing to redirect the call through another trunk carrier.

When tested at the demarcation point is the test done using the same routing codes as the ipo uses for the call.

 

[TouchToneTommy]

After you test the lines at the Demarc, leave your butt set connected in the Monitor mode, reconnect the lines to the IPO, and place calls on the IPO while listening to the butt set monitor. This will tell you if the IPO is dialing before the dial tone is ready to receive digits, if all of the digits are being dialed, etc., and a digit grabber can verify exactly what the IPO is outputting, which may not be readily apparent from the IPO ARS programming

 

[jokermia]

No programming change, this is a pretty vanilla install with POTS lines and 9508 digital sets, and no routing changes through another carrier. The other sites are also the same vanilla programming, and the LEC is the same one at each location (Granite).

The testing at the DMARC is the same as on the phone system: local and long distance calls are tried from the phone system and receive the fast busy, then the calls are tried at the DMARC and they go through. Previously we've reported the issue to Granite and the issue mysteriously clears up after one or two escalations to them. However, the issue still remains at this site and Granite insists it's the phone system, even though new hardware has been installed and the old hardware has tested normal once away from this location.

 

[jokermia]

Thanks, TTT, I'll have the tech try that on his next visit!

 

[Westi]

you can also assign a line button on a phone (just for testing) and then have the user pick up the line and dial once they hear the dialtone.
Saves on gas as you won't need a tech everywhere and if you are on the phone with the user on a cell then you can actually hear what they are doing.

I like TTT's idea of the digit grabber but have not seen one in at least a decade when mine was lost by loaning it to a colleague (he never got anything again)

Joe
FHandw, ACSS, ACIS

"Dew knot truss yore Spell Cheque