[Asterisk-Users] Get MWI from Telco's voicemail

[Greg Hill]

On Wed, 4 Aug 2004, Scott Petersen wrote:
[snip]
> What I am seeing is an event every half hour exactly, on each of the two
> voice lines. This causes the simple switch to kick in and ring the
> extensions. Of course there is no one there. I have put a workaround in
[snip]
> Since these events happen every half hour and only on the lines that
> have voicemail I am very confident that it is the telco sending a
> trigger to turn the MWI on the phones either on or off. I really don't
> want to have to try and find out from the telco as their support is
> much, much, much, less than knowledgeable or helpful. What I am

I found that when I'm dealing with a technical issue on POTS, I get the
best results by personally visiting my CO and hoping a nice person answers
when I ring the bell. For example, I finally got my DSL to work through
this approach: it was up and down often, apparently related to ambient
outdoor temperature. I got to know the (then US west, now qwest) DSL tech
who handled that CO and worked with him directly to resolve the issue.
When he could see that he'd need to spend more than just a few minutes on
a job, he'd take my phone number and tell me to call the 800-number
service people. When they generated the work request and he received it,
he'd call me directly to find out what the real problem is and get it
addressed.

So what I'm getting at is that you might find it advantageous to at least
try talking with techs in your particular CO. They're much more likely to
understand what you're asking about and to know the answer than a
800-number support rep. Just make sure you're nice and avoid taking more
than just a few minutes of their time.

Greg