Portable 9031 Problems

[YooperEE]

Our Avaya 9031 portable phone has been used with our Partner system for many years. This week, whenever a call is answered or placed with the portable, we have problems.

1. Calls answered with the portable are put on hold in a few seconds. The portable is NOT out of range, nor is the battery low.

2. When placing a call with the portable, the 0-9 buttons do not respond immediately. You have to hold them down or press them several times. When they do respond, you hear a long (1 second?) tone instead of just a brief tone. If the call is not completed in several seconds, the line is put on hold.

This gets better…

We have a spare 9031 phone and receiver module, so I swapped them out. The new set responds the same way! So, I did both the Local and Wireless Tests – everything is fine.

I started thinking that it’s a PARTNER problem, so I turned the main power switch off and on after 30 seconds, but it did not help. I have looked through both the 9031 and the Partner manual, but did not find anything that described this kind of problem.

Any ideas?

 

[GroundWire]

Do those 9031 cordless phones suffer from flex board problems as well?

This isn't an attempt to answer your question - more like, a question of my own piggy-backed onto yours..

- Joel

 

[1043]

9031's could be the worst phone made since the 9030. Invest in a 9040 or an analog cordless.

 

[jinxs]

The 9040's suffer from pelting...a term used by tier 4. There is conductive ink on a piece of plastic with raised portions for the buttons. The guys said this "ink" is manufactured in Maylisa or somewhere out there where ther is no QC, this stuff is baking out in the sun..cold nights..ect. Anyway, this stuff start to break apart...kinda like the paint in a can that hasn't been used in years. Anyway, this ink becomes many connections instead of one....then you need to change the flex boards. What happens here is that everytime you press a button, you get multiple connections. The one cust we had was calling 911 multiple times a day by dialing 9..1 and then the multiple connection would dial 1 more. Is this the problem with the 9031, who knows. The flexboard is in an enclosed keypad connection through a ribbon cable. I haven't had any problems with the 9031's except for range problems. Any new equipment installed, wirless lan, transformers close to the transcievers, ect.... Are these units in a carrier or are they stand alone? Are you using multiple units without a carrier? just some food for thought.

 

[GroundWire]

Is it just me, or does it seem like AT&T, Lucent, AND Avaya are designing phones that just aren't designed to stand up to the test of time?

That membrane/"conductive surface touching a pad of copper" appears to be a supremely bad idea.

Honestly - What every happened to good old mechanical contact closures. At least then, when it happened, you could clean it yourself, and it'd be good for a great number of years. Even better is when the switch is hermetically sealed, and nothing can happen to the contact surfaces themselves.

- Joel

 

[YooperEE]

Jinx may be right.

As I mentioned in my first post, I swapped out the stand alone phone/receiver and still had the same problem. So, I don't think it's the phone/receiver.

We did install a new piece of equipment (a surface grinder) directly across from the receiver, about 50 feet away. I'll try the portable with the grinder on and off.

 

[jinxs]

If you guys are looking for a good cordless phone that is worth the money, try spectralink. If you are installing 10 or more, it's comes to the same price as the transtalk. A little confusing at first because they don't operate the same as the transtalks, but the clarity is there. They Guarentee the install or they will fix it for you at their cost.

http://www.spectralink.com/

 

[alebe]

Jinx - I agree with the Spectralink clarity and range being worth the price. However, I've run into ALOT of problems with the PTB410's. Out of a 30 wireless phone install, there were 20 failures over a year period. Failures were buttons coming off, static, no display, echo, and internal error 2 and 8. But, I think Spectralink's support is very great also.

 

[drewmich]

As Transtalk repair specialists ... I would agree with most of your comments.

Spectralink actually was in "bed" with Lucent/Avaya in Denver assisting and manufacturing some of their Transtalk equipment - 9040/9631. Avaya discontinued the 9631 and are selling Spectrlinks products exclusively.

Like all cordless products ... you are going to get the level of use out of the Transtalks based on how they are treated. They don't hande G-force drops or liquid spills or high humidty environments (like toilets especially) very well.

The Avaya Tier 4 story by Jinx sounds good, but all the conductive coatings on the keypad membrane are done by machine. We repair 100s of them and we find that the main problem is corrosion and G-force failure issued problems.

Sure Lucent/Avaya's design for the Transtalk has always needed improvements, but with an installed base of over 5 million Transtalks since 1993 ... you are going to have a history of failures. How many of us have had to replaced a slick little Motorolas and Nokias over the years? I've replaced about 1 per year.

Not necessarily standing up for Transtalks, but as a full featured wireless phone, it has done the job for many years.

I will agree that Avaya has design problems on all the various 9000 series phones and recently got out of the maintenance side of the Transtalks due to uncontrollable costs in the division and sold it off.

Does anyone have a better solution comparable to the 9031 - 9040 - 9631? Spectralink has tried and according to my friend who is an exec VP of telecom purchasing at Home Depot ... it is about 50-50 split when comparing the 9631 to Spectrlinks new products.

Andrew Roach
President - Drew Telecom Group, Inc.
Lucent/Avaya Voice Mail-Component-Transtalk Repair Specialists
Lucent/Avaya Telecom Brokers/Resellers
drew@triton.net
269-685-5400 - voice
269-685-5500 - fax