Q: A year or so ago we were in the market to upgrade our Definity. We decided to go with an S8400 so we could keep a lot of the digital phones we have installed. I am now in the process of changing providers for our ISDN PRI service. As part of the deal they are providing a new block of DID phone numbers. I have a group of about fifty phones that I would like to change to use the new numbers. I remember from the Definity that to change an extension number on a station I would have to remove it and then add it back in with the new extension number. Is that still the case?
A: One of the new commands that became available with CM 2.0 is called “change extension-station xxxx.” This command will change most references to the old extension number in the switch to the new extension, including references in vectors and coverage.
As with all good things, there are a few exceptions. One of the reasons this command would not be allowed is if the station you want to change was referenced as the Emergency Location Extension for another station. For digital and analog phone sets, this command would work well. IP telephones are a little different. The command would still work but the phone itself would have to be logged off and then logged back on using the new extension number.
Q: I have been getting some complaints that when people reach the auto attendant in our Intuity and dial someone’s extension number they are hearing a message that says “all circuits busy.” After some research I’ve noticed it happens only to certain extension numbers. I’ve watched the system monitor on the Intuity and have never seen all of the ports in use at the same time. Is there some kind of limitation on the number of calls that can be transferred out of the Intuity at a given time?
A: I’ve seen this problem a few times before. They always occurred on systems where the system administrator was very concerned and diligent in efforts to prevent toll fraud. Since you said that this only appears to happen when people are trying to call certain extensions, I would first look at each of the “problem” extensions and note what Class of Restriction they are assigned. Then determine what Class of Restriction is assigned to the Intuity voice ports. If you look at the COR for the ports I bet you will notice that it is blocked from calling the COR of the “problem” extensions.
My guess is that the extensions having this problem are assigned to a COR that was created after the Intuity was installed. The reason I mentioned that I’ve seen this before with system administrators who are concerned about toll fraud, is that they will often block the Intuity COR from calling any other COR except those assigned to internal stations. This is a great way to prevent anyone from being able to commit toll fraud against your company by figuring out how to call through your voicemail. The downside to being so thorough is that if any new CORs are created you would have to remember to allow the Intuity COR to call the new COR, if necessary.
Q: I just attended a seminar about Unified Messaging using Exchange. The obvious difference I noticed was that we would need to use SIP instead of the H323 protocol we are using. We have a Definity 9.5 and quite a few IP phones running now. Can we make that work?
A: Unfortunately the short answer is no. There are a couple of issues involved. First and foremost, SIP telephone support is not available until Communication Manager 2.0.1. The other issue is that your 4612 and 4624 phones don’t support SIP at all, regardless of software version. So you would need a rather major switch upgrade, as well as changing your phones from the 4612 and 4624 to something like 4620 or 4621.
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