Phone Voice data and physical wiring 1

[DrB0b]

This is probably the incorrect area to place this but Im at a loss.

Being the new IT/communication guy here, I have been tasked with trying to see if we have any extra extensions in our current phone system. We have a Nortel Norstar system that was put in over our original setup. When Nortel came in, then only added the main comm box, some power supplies for the system, the boxes to work the paging system, and put in place 2 66 block segments. These were labeled with all our available extensions, the fax line, and what I'm assuming is our incoming lines. This is all spider webbed from our original 4 66 block segments that have previous extensions labeled but are not correctly labeled.
My main question is this, is there any real trick to figuring out what the actual extensions are in this mess or is it going to be tracing one at a time? I know so far that the newest block segments are labeled incorrectly as well because what is labeled 109 is actually 108 extension wise.

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[wdm1964]

Ok, I am an old Norstar tech so this may help. There were two practices when labling 66 blocks. One was to label the blocks with the actual extension numbers, Nortel called them DNs. The default starts with 221, then 222, 223 and so on. These numbers can be changed in the system so not many techs did this. A more common practice is to use the Port numbers on the 66 blocks. they start with 101, then 102,103 and so on.

The main cabinet will have anywhere from 8, 16, 24, or 32 Ports for phones on them. A 66 blcok will have at most the first 24 phone ports on it then the next 8 will be on another cable and block. These are all in a row. Expansion modules came in blocks of 16 and started with Port number 301, then 302 and so on to 316.
The next expansion modules ports would start with 401, then 402 and so on.

Your lines start with port 201, then 202. Then Nortel skipped two wire pairs and started 203 on the Slate/White pair then 204 on the Red/Blue pair. Then it skipped two pairs again. If you see this those are your trunks. (outside lines)

If you want to know what a phone is then you can walk up to any phone and, with the handset down, hit Feature *0 then press then intercom key all the way at the bottom right. This will tell you what number the phone is. You have to know how to get into programming to find it in the system. You could get a tone generator and inductive amp to tone out the wires but a Norstar will draw down the tone when it is hooked up.

Good Luck!! If you are in Louisiana I can maybe contract out to give you a hand if you need.

 

[wdm1964]

Also one other tip. If there is no cross connect wiring to a phone DN port then it is open. Norstars came with all phone ports active. If it is a BCM then I am not sure. you may have to pay for licences.

 

[DrB0b]

Thanks,
I finally got ahold of the tech who installed this, and like you said, the block is labeled with port numbers starting at 101. Thanks for the assistance as I knew it had to be something like that. Yea I had the programming side figured out, and that plus a tone generator helped me figure out most of the lines before speaking to the phone tech.

P.S. In IL so I'll have to pass on the help, but thanks for the contractual offer.

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...