I've been struggling with a test * install for a couple months now in a small office and am just about ready to give up on it. It's not that the system itself is a problem. I've got everything (attendant, voicemail, FXS extensions, Cisco and Polycom hard-IP phones, and 2 VOIP carriers) working except for the frigging analog FXO interfaces. These things are driving me completely mad. Since this is obvioiusly a deal breaker, I'm looking for any more suggestions on how I might fet these things working. The hitch is pretty clearly the quality of the lines I have from BellSouth but I can't get thim to identify anything wrong. I have tried a Digium 1-port FXO card (can't remember part number and it's no longer on their site, hmmm...) as well as a Sipura SPA3000. With both of these interfaces, I'm getting consistent mis-dials on outbound calls, broken inbound fax-detection, broken DTMF detection in the attendant menus. Hours of adjustments to the gains on the Digium card only added echo and failed to reduce the offurenc of the other issues. These same two interfaces worked fine on a line at my office so I'm pretty sure the issue is with the lines at the test site. So, what are my options here for interfacing with these lines? Would the channel-bank route affect this? Thanks in advance for any suggestions, Paul -- Paul A. Dugas Dugas Enterprises, LLC email: paul@dugasenterprises.com 1711 Indian Ridge Drive phone: 404.932.1355 fax: 770.516-4841 Woodstock, GA 30189 USA [ onsite at the Georgia DOT's West Annex, 404.463.2860 x158 ]
asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com wrote:> I've been struggling with a test * install for a couple > months now in a small office and am just about ready to give > up on it. It's not that the system itself is a problem. > I've got everything (attendant, voicemail, FXS extensions, > Cisco and Polycom hard-IP phones, and 2 VOIP carriers) > working except for the frigging analog FXO interfaces. These > things are driving me completely mad. Since this is > obvioiusly a deal breaker, I'm looking for any more > suggestions on how I might fet these things working. > > The hitch is pretty clearly the quality of the lines I have > from BellSouth but I can't get thim to identify anything > wrong. I have tried a Digium 1-port FXO card (can't remember > part number and it's no longer on their site, hmmm...) as > well as a Sipura SPA3000. With both of these interfaces, I'm > getting consistent mis-dials on outbound calls, broken > inbound fax-detection, broken DTMF detection in the attendant menus. > Hours of adjustments to the gains on the Digium card only > added echo and failed to reduce the offurenc of the other > issues. These same two interfaces worked fine on a line at > my office so I'm pretty sure the issue is with the lines at > the test site. > > So, what are my options here for interfacing with these > lines? Would the channel-bank route affect this?You should probably scope the lines with a circuit tester. Used Wilcom T136 units can be had on eBay for about 20 bucks. They'll allow you to check the noise and loss on the circuit. When you report it you don't have to describe a problem, but simply state that the circuit is out of spec. No guarantee that this is your problem, but from the symptoms you describe you are definitely on the right track. Good luck. Jim.
Hi I feel your pain! We have had the same problem with our telco lines but found that converting to ISDN helped. If the delay on the send and receive two pair is to big the echo canceller is not strong enough. Try using a Voictronix card as they seem to solve the problem to a degree but I would suggest ISDN. Doug -----Original Message----- From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com]On Behalf Of Paul Dugas Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 5:32 PM To: Asterisk Mailing List Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Analog FXO Woes Continue I've been struggling with a test * install for a couple months now in a small office and am just about ready to give up on it. It's not that the system itself is a problem. I've got everything (attendant, voicemail, FXS extensions, Cisco and Polycom hard-IP phones, and 2 VOIP carriers) working except for the frigging analog FXO interfaces. These things are driving me completely mad. Since this is obvioiusly a deal breaker, I'm looking for any more suggestions on how I might fet these things working. The hitch is pretty clearly the quality of the lines I have from BellSouth but I can't get thim to identify anything wrong. I have tried a Digium 1-port FXO card (can't remember part number and it's no longer on their site, hmmm...) as well as a Sipura SPA3000. With both of these interfaces, I'm getting consistent mis-dials on outbound calls, broken inbound fax-detection, broken DTMF detection in the attendant menus. Hours of adjustments to the gains on the Digium card only added echo and failed to reduce the offurenc of the other issues. These same two interfaces worked fine on a line at my office so I'm pretty sure the issue is with the lines at the test site. So, what are my options here for interfacing with these lines? Would the channel-bank route affect this? Thanks in advance for any suggestions, Paul -- Paul A. Dugas Dugas Enterprises, LLC email: paul@dugasenterprises.com 1711 Indian Ridge Drive phone: 404.932.1355 fax: 770.516-4841 Woodstock, GA 30189 USA [ onsite at the Georgia DOT's West Annex, 404.463.2860 x158 ] _______________________________________________ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
> I've been struggling with a test * install for a couple months now in a > small office and am just about ready to give up on it. It's not that the > system itself is a problem. I've got everything (attendant, voicemail, > FXS extensions, Cisco and Polycom hard-IP phones, and 2 VOIP carriers) > working except for the frigging analog FXO interfaces. These things are > driving me completely mad. Since this is obvioiusly a deal breaker, I'm > looking for any more suggestions on how I might fet these things working. > > The hitch is pretty clearly the quality of the lines I have from BellSouth > but I can't get thim to identify anything wrong. I have tried a Digium > 1-port FXO card (can't remember part number and it's no longer on their > site, hmmm...) as well as a Sipura SPA3000. With both of these > interfaces, I'm getting consistent mis-dials on outbound calls, broken > inbound fax-detection, broken DTMF detection in the attendant menus. > Hours of adjustments to the gains on the Digium card only added echo and > failed to reduce the offurenc of the other issues. These same two > interfaces worked fine on a line at my office so I'm pretty sure the issue > is with the lines at the test site. > > So, what are my options here for interfacing with these lines? Would the > channel-bank route affect this? > > Thanks in advance for any suggestions,Don't have any real answers, but might check the following... at least to rule them out. Telco folks _always_ check lines from their demarc (which in some cases is the protector box on the outside of the building). Most will not come inside to measure anything from the customer equipment jack. If that's true in your case, then you have to question the cabling inside the building (to asterisk). That cabling is most often simple inside wire that can easily pick up noise (eg, induction from florescent lights, motors, wall-wart transformers, some desk lamps). If you don't know where the inside wire is run, might try to find out or bypass it with cabling laying on the floor for at least an elementary test. If you did not _see_ a telco person on site doing the transmission checks, you have to assume that someone did them from the central office (most common approach). That's okay in many cases, but its not okay in other more serious cases. The majority of the telco people that would be dispatched for testing only know enough to follow printed procedures using whatever testset they've been given; they don't have the skills to actually interpret the readings for cases they've never seen or been trained to recognize. Its not hard to plug an ordinary phone into the same rj11 jack used by asterisk. Do it and listen close. Given the problems that you've stated, it should not be difficult to hear noise, hum, low volume, etc, if it is in fact bad lines. Also, compare lines; it is not very often four of four lines go bad in exactly the same way. Can you hear any difference between lines? Bridge an ordinary phone on the same pstn line as asterisk. Place some calls from asterisk and listen to what's going on via the analog phone. (Example: some central offices don't like dtmf tones within xxx milliseconds after going off-hook. You'll get wrong numbers, etc. Insert the 'w' option in your Dial statement to delay those dtmf tones a little bit.) To be a little sneaky, unscrew and remove the mouthpiece from the analog phone and you can monitor calls all day long without impacting asterisk's ability to handle calls. If asterisk is having an echo issue (as an example) and you don't hear it with the bridged phone, you at least know where to look. If you messed with the txgain/rxgain for your analog lines, go back to zero gain, use echocancel=yes echotraining=800 rxgain=0.0 txgain=0.0 on each pstn line, reboot the server, and test using some of the above steps to verify problems. If you're still not sure what's going on, transmission test sets are sold by many different companies that you can use from the asterisk rj11 jack to prove line quality. New sets run about $400 to $600 for what you need; check ebay for used pricing. The telco's have a telephone number for a "quiet termination" and another one for their "milliwatt generator". Get those numbers and use the test set to measure noise (quiet termination) and loss (milliwatt generator). If those results are reaonable, then you've got an asterisk configuration problem (and/or digium card problem). Rich
> On Tue, 2004-12-07 at 09:34 -0600, asterisk-users- > request@lists.digium.com wrote: > > I've been struggling with a test * install for a couple months now in a > > small office and am just about ready to give up on it. It's not that the > > system itself is a problem. I've got everything (attendant, voicemail, > > FXS extensions, Cisco and Polycom hard-IP phones, and 2 VOIP carriers) > > working except for the frigging analog FXO interfaces. These things are > > driving me completely mad. Since this is obvioiusly a deal breaker, I'm > > looking for any more suggestions on how I might fet these things working. > > > > The hitch is pretty clearly the quality of the lines I have from BellSouth > > but I can't get thim to identify anything wrong. I have tried a Digium > > 1-port FXO card (can't remember part number and it's no longer on their > > site, hmmm...) as well as a Sipura SPA3000. With both of these > > interfaces, I'm getting consistent mis-dials on outbound calls, broken > > inbound fax-detection, broken DTMF detection in the attendant menus. > > Hours of adjustments to the gains on the Digium card only added echo and > > failed to reduce the offurenc of the other issues. These same two > > interfaces worked fine on a line at my office so I'm pretty sure the issue > > is with the lines at the test site. > > > > So, what are my options here for interfacing with these lines? Would the > > channel-bank route affect this? > > > > Thanks in advance for any suggestions, > > > > PaulPaul-- I've had probs on and off with the dialtone recognition, which seems to me is your problem. There is an option in zapata.conf relaxdtmf=yes I am in like fashion using a singleton FXO card, and am still, after a year, having echo probs, which by concensus seems to be because I chose the wrong motherboard when I built the system. Oh, well! With some of the echocancel related options set, I can reduce the prob to a "minor" irritation. Try the relaxdtmf option and see if this reduces the headache. murf -- Steve Murphy <murf@e-tools.com> Electronic Tools Company
We have also decided that FXO interfacing is not reliable enough, even when using the Digium 4 four port FXO card, the lines hang frequently and there have been various quality issues. All of our production deployments are PRI interface, and they are rock solid. While I have not done it myself, it seems that the solution to provide digital interface without the expense of a PRI would be ISDN using a card like the Eicon Diva BRI. No experience with this from our end, but in our region a BRI is less money than two busienss DS0s anyways. ________________________________ From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com on behalf of Rich Adamson Sent: Tue 12/7/2004 10:14 AM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Analog FXO Woes Continue> I've been struggling with a test * install for a couple months now in a > small office and am just about ready to give up on it. It's not that the > system itself is a problem. I've got everything (attendant, voicemail, > FXS extensions, Cisco and Polycom hard-IP phones, and 2 VOIP carriers) > working except for the frigging analog FXO interfaces. These things are > driving me completely mad. Since this is obvioiusly a deal breaker, I'm > looking for any more suggestions on how I might fet these things working. > > The hitch is pretty clearly the quality of the lines I have from BellSouth > but I can't get thim to identify anything wrong. I have tried a Digium > 1-port FXO card (can't remember part number and it's no longer on their > site, hmmm...) as well as a Sipura SPA3000. With both of these > interfaces, I'm getting consistent mis-dials on outbound calls, broken > inbound fax-detection, broken DTMF detection in the attendant menus. > Hours of adjustments to the gains on the Digium card only added echo and > failed to reduce the offurenc of the other issues. These same two > interfaces worked fine on a line at my office so I'm pretty sure the issue > is with the lines at the test site. > > So, what are my options here for interfacing with these lines? Would the > channel-bank route affect this? > > Thanks in advance for any suggestions,Don't have any real answers, but might check the following... at least to rule them out. Telco folks _always_ check lines from their demarc (which in some cases is the protector box on the outside of the building). Most will not come inside to measure anything from the customer equipment jack. If that's true in your case, then you have to question the cabling inside the building (to asterisk). That cabling is most often simple inside wire that can easily pick up noise (eg, induction from florescent lights, motors, wall-wart transformers, some desk lamps). If you don't know where the inside wire is run, might try to find out or bypass it with cabling laying on the floor for at least an elementary test. If you did not _see_ a telco person on site doing the transmission checks, you have to assume that someone did them from the central office (most common approach). That's okay in many cases, but its not okay in other more serious cases. The majority of the telco people that would be dispatched for testing only know enough to follow printed procedures using whatever testset they've been given; they don't have the skills to actually interpret the readings for cases they've never seen or been trained to recognize. Its not hard to plug an ordinary phone into the same rj11 jack used by asterisk. Do it and listen close. Given the problems that you've stated, it should not be difficult to hear noise, hum, low volume, etc, if it is in fact bad lines. Also, compare lines; it is not very often four of four lines go bad in exactly the same way. Can you hear any difference between lines? Bridge an ordinary phone on the same pstn line as asterisk. Place some calls from asterisk and listen to what's going on via the analog phone. (Example: some central offices don't like dtmf tones within xxx milliseconds after going off-hook. You'll get wrong numbers, etc. Insert the 'w' option in your Dial statement to delay those dtmf tones a little bit.) To be a little sneaky, unscrew and remove the mouthpiece from the analog phone and you can monitor calls all day long without impacting asterisk's ability to handle calls. If asterisk is having an echo issue (as an example) and you don't hear it with the bridged phone, you at least know where to look. If you messed with the txgain/rxgain for your analog lines, go back to zero gain, use echocancel=yes echotraining=800 rxgain=0.0 txgain=0.0 on each pstn line, reboot the server, and test using some of the above steps to verify problems. If you're still not sure what's going on, transmission test sets are sold by many different companies that you can use from the asterisk rj11 jack to prove line quality. New sets run about $400 to $600 for what you need; check ebay for used pricing. The telco's have a telephone number for a "quiet termination" and another one for their "milliwatt generator". Get those numbers and use the test set to measure noise (quiet termination) and loss (milliwatt generator). If those results are reaonable, then you've got an asterisk configuration problem (and/or digium card problem). Rich _______________________________________________ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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I had a similar problem with DTMF detection using a T100X and TDM400P (1 FXS channel) my analog phone connected to TDM400P would not detect all keys when I tried dialing out. I traced it to a misconfigured extensions.conf file, This was the last file I changed when the problem started. After various attempts to undo my changes (no backup) I deleted the contents of extensions.conf and started over with a basic configuration and restarted * problem disappeared. - Jose> -----Original Message----- > From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com > [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of > Paul Dugas > Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 7:32 AM > To: Asterisk Mailing List > Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Analog FXO Woes Continue > > > I've been struggling with a test * install for a couple > months now in a small office and am just about ready to give > up on it. It's not that the system itself is a problem. > I've got everything (attendant, voicemail, FXS extensions, > Cisco and Polycom hard-IP phones, and 2 VOIP carriers) > working except for the frigging analog FXO interfaces. These > things are driving me completely mad. Since this is > obvioiusly a deal breaker, I'm looking for any more > suggestions on how I might fet these things working. > > The hitch is pretty clearly the quality of the lines I have > from BellSouth but I can't get thim to identify anything > wrong. I have tried a Digium 1-port FXO card (can't remember > part number and it's no longer on their site, hmmm...) as > well as a Sipura SPA3000. With both of these interfaces, I'm > getting consistent mis-dials on outbound calls, broken > inbound fax-detection, broken DTMF detection in the attendant menus. > Hours of adjustments to the gains on the Digium card only > added echo and failed to reduce the offurenc of the other > issues. These same two interfaces worked fine on a line at > my office so I'm pretty sure the issue is with the lines at > the test site. > > So, what are my options here for interfacing with these > lines? Would the channel-bank route affect this? > > Thanks in advance for any suggestions, > > Paul > > -- > Paul A. Dugas Dugas Enterprises, LLC > email: paul@dugasenterprises.com 1711 Indian Ridge Drive > phone: 404.932.1355 fax: 770.516-4841 Woodstock, GA 30189 USA > [ onsite at the Georgia DOT's West Annex, 404.463.2860 > x158 ] _______________________________________________ > Asterisk-Users mailing list > Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users > To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users >
asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com wrote:> I've been struggling with a test * install for a couple > months now in a small office and am just about ready to give > up on it. It's not that the system itself is a problem. > I've got everything (attendant, voicemail, FXS extensions, > Cisco and Polycom hard-IP phones, and 2 VOIP carriers) > working except for the frigging analog FXO interfaces. These > things are driving me completely mad. Since this is > obvioiusly a deal breaker, I'm looking for any more > suggestions on how I might fet these things working. > > The hitch is pretty clearly the quality of the lines I have > from BellSouth but I can't get thim to identify anything > wrong. I have tried a Digium 1-port FXO card (can't remember > part number and it's no longer on their site, hmmm...) as > well as a Sipura SPA3000. With both of these interfaces, I'm > getting consistent mis-dials on outbound calls, broken > inbound fax-detection, broken DTMF detection in the attendant menus. > Hours of adjustments to the gains on the Digium card only > added echo and failed to reduce the offurenc of the other > issues. These same two interfaces worked fine on a line at > my office so I'm pretty sure the issue is with the lines at > the test site. > > So, what are my options here for interfacing with these > lines? Would the channel-bank route affect this?Another thing to find out is whether there are loading coils on the circuit. That can cause all kinds of strange problems if you're not using a purely electromechanical analogue phone. Did you test these circuits using a regular fax machine plugged directly into the circuit? Can you test with a good old-fashioned 56K modem; are you able to connect at a minimum of 28.8K? The fact is that line impairments can be quite expensive for telcos to fix. Right or wrong, it is a part of the reason why they'll attempt to convince you to give up on getting the problem solved.
Greg - Cirelle Enterprises
2004-Dec-07 13:10 UTC
[Asterisk-Users] Analog FXO Woes Continue
>analog phone. (Example: some central offices don't like dtmf tones >within xxx milliseconds after going off-hook. You'll get wrong >numbers, etc. Insert the 'w' option in your Dial statement to >delay those dtmf tones a little bit.) To be a little sneaky,We had one line, it happened to be a business line, that required putting a "w" before the number in the dial statement in order for it to work. Fixed our problem, Regards Greg Cirino ___________________________________
In addition to the suggestions with the quality of the phone lines, I had the same problem when I had an IRQ conflict with two cards in the same * box. I actually fixed the problem by just swapping the cards between the two slots they were in. Two TDM cards and just flipped them and they both now work. IMHO, just taking the card out and putting the card in another * box only proves the card works. It does not prove the card works properly in a particular card slot on a given * box with a given * configuration/installation. Check your IRQ's and play with them and also play with different card slots in the * box. Lyle ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Dugas" <Paul@DugasEnterprises.com> To: "Asterisk Mailing List" <asterisk-users@lists.digium.com> Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 9:31 AM Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Analog FXO Woes Continue> I've been struggling with a test * install for a couple months now in a > small office and am just about ready to give up on it. It's not that the > system itself is a problem. I've got everything (attendant, voicemail, > FXS extensions, Cisco and Polycom hard-IP phones, and 2 VOIP carriers) > working except for the frigging analog FXO interfaces. These things are > driving me completely mad. Since this is obvioiusly a deal breaker, I'm > looking for any more suggestions on how I might fet these things working. > > The hitch is pretty clearly the quality of the lines I have from BellSouth > but I can't get thim to identify anything wrong. I have tried a Digium > 1-port FXO card (can't remember part number and it's no longer on their > site, hmmm...) as well as a Sipura SPA3000. With both of these > interfaces, I'm getting consistent mis-dials on outbound calls, broken > inbound fax-detection, broken DTMF detection in the attendant menus. > Hours of adjustments to the gains on the Digium card only added echo and > failed to reduce the offurenc of the other issues. These same two > interfaces worked fine on a line at my office so I'm pretty sure the issue > is with the lines at the test site. > > So, what are my options here for interfacing with these lines? Would the > channel-bank route affect this? > > Thanks in advance for any suggestions, > > Paul > > -- > Paul A. Dugas Dugas Enterprises, LLC > email: paul@dugasenterprises.com 1711 Indian Ridge Drive > phone: 404.932.1355 fax: 770.516-4841 Woodstock, GA 30189 USA > [ onsite at the Georgia DOT's West Annex, 404.463.2860 x158 ] > _______________________________________________ > Asterisk-Users mailing list > Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users > To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users >