Ascend Archive
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Re: (ASCEND) Centrex Calls with 5.0Ap36 (Private/Public Flags)
We have a Max 2000 connected to an ISDN PRI in a Centrex group on
the PacBell SNFCCA21DS1 (DMS-100) switch in San Francisco. Up until
about a month ago we were just like everyone else: we could dial
inside the Centrex using 5-digits and call outside the Centrex by
dialing '9' first. This worked on every release of Ascend software
I tried. The 'test' command also worked for this setup. Then that
switch was upgraded and the "bootleg workaround" which made this all
work was ripped out. The switch guy at PacBell said that SBC wants
these switches to run clean with no bootleg workarounds from now on.
After this upgrade, I could call anyone except the 5-digit Centrex
ISDN BRI's. Didn't have to dial 9 to get outside the Centrex. It
acted just as if I didn't have centrex at all. So I called PacBell
and they watched me make a few 5-digit calls to some customers and
noticed that I wasn't setting the 'Private' bit/flag in the 'Network
Specific Flag' (this is their term) of the Q.931 packet. Well, I
remembered there was a RADIUS attribute that might be worth trying,
so I played around with that and found that this set the Private flag
so PacBell was happy and I could call inside the Centrex and outside
as before:
Ascend-PRI-Number-Type = Local-Number
This worked great in 4.6Cp22 but not in 5.0Ap36. I tried all the
values of Ascend-PRI-Number-Type in RADIUS and even went directly to
the connection profile and tried all values of 'PRI # Type' and none
worked. I flat-out was unable to call 5-digit extensions, so I
called PacBell and again they never saw the Private flag being set.
I backed down to 4.6p22 and all was fine again (as long as I used the
Local-Number value).
I also noticed that the Terminal Server 'test' command was unable to
make 5-digit Centrex calls in both 4.6Cp22 and 5.0Ap36. I guess this
is because there is no way to tell it the call type?
I assume these RADIUS values are supposed to set some flag in the
Q.931 packet somewhere, so it would seem that one of these guys
isn't setting that darn Private flag:
VALUE Ascend-PRI-Number-Type Intl-Number 1
VALUE Ascend-PRI-Number-Type National-Number 2
VALUE Ascend-PRI-Number-Type Local-Number 4
VALUE Ascend-PRI-Number-Type Abbrev-Number 5
If PacBell is going to do more ripping out of bootleg workarounds,
there are going to be a lot of unhappy Ascend customers who are
running Centrex ISDN shops...
-earlw
>From: Kevin Smith <kevin@ascend.com>
>
>You're dialing out with the MAX then ?
>
>I wonder if they mean that the call-by-call parameter should be set to
>1...maybe it was in your earlier setup....?
>
>At 10:50 PM 12/16/97 -0800, Earl Wallace wrote:
>>
>>We were running 4.6Cp22 on our Max 2000 and decided to jump over to
>>5.0Ap36 but had to go back to 4.6Cp22 after we could not call any of
>>our Centrex ISDN customers with 5.0Ap36.
>>
>>To avoid PacBell per-minute charges, we must dial the Centrex
>>extensions with 5-digits (it can vary depending on your need).
>>We had the PacBell Tech Support folks watch us make some Centrex
>>calls and they did not see us set the 'Private' flag in the call
>>setup. This flag has to be set for Centrex calls (if the Private
>>flag isn't set, it assumes you are making a Public call). In the
>>past this has not been a problem before because PacBell hacked around
>>this 'Private' flag requirement, but they don't do that any more
>>since SBC has declared the switches will run unhacked code, which
>>I guess is a GoodThing ;-) 4.6Cp22 set the Private flag, 5.0Ap36
>>does not.
>>
>>Anyone else doing Centrex calls to their customers on a DMS-100 in
>>PacBell-Land with 5.0Ap36?
>>
>>I have reported the problem to Ascend but haven't heard back from them
>>on this particular issue...
>>
>>P.S. - Other than this Private flag problem, we would very happy with
>> 5.0Ap36.
>
>Kevin
---
Earl Wallace [earlw@walltech.com] Wallace Technical Communications
V: 650-938-1352 F: 650-961-9151 http://www.walltech.com
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