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Typical
Telephone Company Service Issues
Verizon, the (LEC) local
exchange carrier and (CLEC’s) competitive local exchange carriers are in
constant battle. DSL, fax & modem lines exhaust limited copper loops to your
home or business. Knowledgeable telecom technicians are in short supply. These
issues affect your ability to get your voice & data lines. We have compiled
service tips from our direct experience and inside sources to help you get the
telephone voice or data service your desire.’ SLOW MODEM OR FAX
The most common situation is
that an area suddenly starts growing, and the cable capacity for phone lines to
serve the area is inadequate. Rather than pull more cable, usually the telco
will install or expand a (SLIC) Subscriber Line
Interface Circuits and
move existing phone lines on the SLIC service, resulting in degraded connection
quality. SLICs are installed to multiplex
up to 96 residential copper lines into a few pairs that feed back to the (CO)
central office. A
56K modem that connects in the mid 40's then one day connects at 26.4k can mean
you’ve been moved to a SLIC. Blame your new neighbors ! FIX:
Complain to the telco and get moved back on to the directly connected copper
cable. FIX:
Have service upgraded to Centrex Business service. The Centrex tariff demands
higher signal quality from premise to CO. After the switch to Centrex, have the
tech measure “attenuation from NID to frame” and see if it is within specs.
MODEM
SLOW AND/OR CALLER ID DOES NOT WORK
Load coils are required for voice communications but can adversely affect modem signals. There is not much you can do about load coils unless you convert to ISDN BRI of DSL. Then, these devices must come off. Bridge taps are the most annoying and offensive of all the copper circuit anomalies. They are by far the number one problem in achieving higher modem speeds. Unfortunately they are riddled throughout most residential neighborhoods and corporate business parks. When the phone company runs a cable down the street, the cable may extend a mile or so pass your location. Although no other premise is using your specific copper pair, the pair runs out the length of the main office park feed cable. Installers "TAP" the wires from your premise into the main feed cable running down the street. They do not cut the cable pair at the junction box just as they have to use the same pair for one of your neighbors down the road when you move. That means there may be a one mile cable running from the central office out past your premise and your telephone line is tapped into the middle of it. It's sort of like having an additional half-mile antenna picking up all the garbage in the air and feeding it to your telephone equipment. This antenna injects noise into your telephone electronics. FIX: Ask the field tech if any of these devices are on your line and if they can be disconnected. It may also help to have a long term contact on your modem lines to prove to the tech that sacrificing the basic copper plant design for just one premise is cost justified.
PHONE COMPANY GETS ORDERS WRONG
Today,
your LEC order or repair clerk taking your request has less than 1/10 the
experience of previous staff. Existing staff is worked hard and under heavy
stress. Turn to Infotel Systems to place these requests. We have electronic
access to order desks and interface directly with the final technician on repair
requests. On difficult repairs, the most experienced LEC techs wish only to talk
with us as we can best describe the problem.
KEEP
A CHEAP PHONE AROUND TO TEST YOUR NID
When you hear static on your
line, no dial tone, can’t dial long distance, etc, you need to check your
phone lines at your (NID) network interface device. A NID allows you to
disconnect your telephone system completely and plug your test set directly into
LEC dial tone. If you don’t test from the NID you can’t rule out your
telephone system as being the cause of the problem.
DSL INSTALL TAKING TO LONG
First, you must be within 18,000 feet of the central office. This is NOT a line of site measure as copper generally runs along roads. We have software to measure the probable copper loop distance. If can be within 18,000 feet but still suffer from slow service deployment. Again, bridge-taps & load coils can be causing the problem. Yet, another problem is one created by the LEC as they tend to install fiber optic facilities into new areas to shorten the "last mile" copper loop. This robs DSL providers of adequate clean copper pairs. DSL providers can't use the LECS fiber facilities.
ONE WAY AUDIO or CALLER
CONTINUES TO HEAR RING BACK AFTER YOU ANSWER
Verify with repair that you do
NOT have a direct copper path back to the CO but instead are served by a SLIC.
If so, request that the SLIC’s ground reference setting be checked. This is
such a common problem that it is now Infotel Systems policy to check for this on
new installs. If it’s NOT the problem, the tech will still be impressed that
you knew to ask !
TOUCH-TONES DON’T WORK
REMOTE VOICE MAIL (ANSWER CALL)
Take the phone in use to the
neighbor’s house. If it now works, you have a line attenuation problem that is
limiting high frequencies. Tell repair that you want your copper line “lifted
from the frame” and tested for attenuation. You are protected by state tariffs
on maximum allowable loop attenuation.
NEVER CHANGE OR ADD TO A
LINE SERVICE ORDER
If your installing Caller ID
and change your mind, that’s O.K. but installs of new lines require
cooperation from many departments at the LEC. Your original order gets split to
many teams. Your order changes may
not get to the same departments in a timely fashion. CARRIER TECH DOES NOT SHOW
These guys are overworked.
It’s not their fault. Don’t “kill the messenger” if they are late. Make
A.M. (8 –12, NOT 9 -12) appointments and never on a Monday or Friday or day
after a holiday. Infotel Systems started business in 1988 designing Lucent 5E switch simulators for Bell Atlantic and later operated an automated diagnostic service for Bell Atlantic and independent techs. Infotel maintains equipment to diagnose ISDN, T-1 and voice lines. They also have lines from diverse carriers to troubleshoot inter carrier network issues. If you have a strange line problem that won’t go away call us for a consult at (804) 266-6600 or email answers@infotelsystems.com |
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Infotel Systems - Richmond, Virginia - Business Telephone Systems, Voice & Data Networks, Cabling, Carrier Services 804-266-6600 |
