asterisk users - Apr 2005 - T1 E&M wink issues - bad int'l dial-out and occasional dropped calls

Anyone have any ideas here?

We are using 8 channels of E&M Wink with a T100P for outgoing LD and 
incoming tollfree numbers and are apparently connected to a Nortel 
DMS-250 at the CO.   We are receiving ANI & DNIS just fine and can 
dial-out domestically with DTMF but have two issues that are still 
unresolved:

1) We cannot dial-out internationally with an 011 prefix (or any other 
prefix that we can think of).  Qwest claims (1) they never get 
international calls and (2) domestic calls are routed to their LD 
service as 00001NXXNXXXXXX instead of 1NXXNXXXXXX.   Is some form of 
prefix/suffix needed for DTMF dialing over an E&M wink channel?  (e.g. 
something like the *ANI*DNIS* for incoming.) 011 clearly doesn't work as 
a prefix and Qwest's response has invariably been 'there is something 
wrong with your PBX' :(   Curiously if we follow an 
011+international-number with a * we get a recording that we have not 
entered sufficient digits to complete the call whereas without the * we 
just get a congestion beep from the far end.

2) Once or twice a day the customer is getting calls dropped.  The log 
shows the following:

Apr 21 13:15:51 VERBOSE[22664]:     -- Hungup 'Zap/7-1'
Apr 21 13:15:52 VERBOSE[22664]:     -- Starting simple switch on 
'Zap/7-1'      Apr 21 13:15:53 WARNING[22664]: getdtmf on channel 7: 
Operation now in progress
Apr 21 13:15:53 VERBOSE[22664]:     -- Hungup 'Zap/7-1'

It appears that we see the line go back on-hook, hangup but then see it go
off-hook again and treat it as another incoming call that never gets a DTMF
input when in fact the call has just been dropped.  We've verified that we
are not sharing interrupts, we are on run level 3 etc. zttest shows (so far) a
minimum of 99.987%.  Can anyone think of what might be causing this or what we
could ask Qwest regarding possible diagnostics?

3) Finally, what level of dropped calls is generally considered acceptable? 
Like the dead-pixel issue with LCDs this is pretty subjective but is there an
industry number that is typical? (We are presently at ~1% due to this issue.)

Thanks to all for any shared wisdom.  Bill

bill black wrote:
> Anyone have any ideas here?
>
> We are using 8 channels of E&M Wink with a T100P for outgoing LD and 
> incoming tollfree numbers and are apparently connected to a Nortel 
> DMS-250 at the CO.   We are receiving ANI & DNIS just fine and can 
> dial-out domestically with DTMF but have two issues that are still 
> unresolved:
>
> 1) We cannot dial-out internationally with an 011 prefix (or any other 
> prefix that we can think of).  Qwest claims (1) they never get 
> international calls and (2) domestic calls are routed to their LD 
> service as 00001NXXNXXXXXX instead of 1NXXNXXXXXX.   Is some form of 
> prefix/suffix needed for DTMF dialing over an E&M wink channel?  (e.g. 
> something like the *ANI*DNIS* for incoming.) 011 clearly doesn't work 
> as a prefix and Qwest's response has invariably been 'there is 
> something wrong with your PBX' :(   Curiously if we follow an 
> 011+international-number with a * we get a recording that we have not 
> entered sufficient digits to complete the call whereas without the * 
> we just get a congestion beep from the far end.
>
> 2) Once or twice a day the customer is getting calls dropped.  The log 
> shows the following:
>
> Apr 21 13:15:51 VERBOSE[22664]:     -- Hungup 'Zap/7-1'
> Apr 21 13:15:52 VERBOSE[22664]:     -- Starting simple switch on 
> 'Zap/7-1'      Apr 21 13:15:53 WARNING[22664]: getdtmf on channel
7:
> Operation now in progress
> Apr 21 13:15:53 VERBOSE[22664]:     -- Hungup 'Zap/7-1'
>
> It appears that we see the line go back on-hook, hangup but then see 
> it go off-hook again and treat it as another incoming call that never 
> gets a DTMF input when in fact the call has just been dropped.  We've 
> verified that we are not sharing interrupts, we are on run level 3 
> etc. zttest shows (so far) a minimum of 99.987%.  Can anyone think of 
> what might be causing this or what we could ask Qwest regarding 
> possible diagnostics?
>
> 3) Finally, what level of dropped calls is generally considered 
> acceptable?  Like the dead-pixel issue with LCDs this is pretty 
> subjective but is there an industry number that is typical? (We are 
> presently at ~1% due to this issue.)
>
> Thanks to all for any shared wisdom.  Bill
http://www.qwest.com/largebusiness/products/voice/callingcards/lb_dial_guide.html

based on that info, i'd say you are about to have a very crappy day.
<G>