[Asterisk-Users] PRI litmus test

[Steven Critchfield]

On Thu, 2004-12-02 at 09:29 +0000, tim panton wrote:
> On 1 Dec 2004, at 15:22, Peter Svensson wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, 1 Dec 2004, Enoch Root wrote:
> >
> >> I'm diagnosing a problem related to PRI card.  I would
> >> like to know the following: assuming I've got a
> >> working PRI card and correctly installed Linux drivers
> >> and a PRI line connected to the card, even without
> >> starting asterisk, shouldn't I hear a ring tone when I
> >> dial the number?  I'm getting busy tone all the time.
> >
> > Without a a correctly coded q.931 conversation driven by a program the
> > central office is likely to (should really) consider the line down and
> > signal an error. If you tried phoning from an isdn equipment you would
> > likely see a cause code that explained the situation better.
> >
> > First make sure that the lower level is connected correctly. Run zttool
> > and make sure you are not seeing a local red alarm or any remote 
> > alarms.
> > You may need to start Asterisk to get the span started, I am not sure.
> > When zttool shows the span to be up you can start working on the upper
> > layers.
> >
> > Peter
> >
> Just a warning, based on my experience with NTL here in the U.K.
> 
> Even after you have zttool and asterisk running and happy, you may 
> still not have
> a working system.
> 
> Whilst setting up asterisk I had triggered so many alarms on NTL's 
> monitoring
> screens that the ops guys had marked the line as out-of-service just to
> shut it up !
> 
> This meant that no calls could go in or out, even though the interface
> came up fine.
> 
> When I rang support they quickly put it back in service and things 
> started working.

Thats true of telcos in the states as well. I wouldn't doubt it if many
telcos behaved that way. 

I believe one of our previous providers had mentioned that if they
encountered too many errors in a certain time frame the switch
automatically disabled the line. While I took it as a warning to not
muck with the config too often or much, but I bet it is to force someone
to take notice of something is failing.
-- 
Steven Critchfield <critch at basesys.com>