Originally posted by justbill:
Paul,
While I never really messed with the CAMA trunks, I would think the billing would kick in at the local switch when a connection would be determined to be established.
But how does the local switch which is performing the CAMA function
know when the connection has been established if answer supervision is not returned over the long-haul trunk somehow?
Say somebody made a call from an end office in Georgia to an end office in California and the call went via tandems in Atlanta and Los Angeles, with the Atlanta tandem handling the CAMA/billing for the smaller Georgia C.O.
Surely the end office in California must return answer supervision to Los Angeles, which in turn must signal it back over the carrier system to Atlanta? Without that, how would Atlanta know that a call has been answered and that billing must commence, rather than the call just ringing, going to intercept, busy, etc.?
I know that applying 2600Hz in the forward direction (i.e. calling end to called end) reset the trunk, but I'm not sure about the reverse direction. i.e., could the call above be something like this from the point of view of the long-haul trunk:
1. Atlanta seizes trunk to Los Angeles by removing 2600 supervisory.
2. (Optional perhaps). Los Angeles acknowledges by a "wink" removal of 2600 in the return direction but then keeps the tone on for now.
3. Atlanta sends KP + number + start to send number.
4. When Los Angeles receives answer supervision from the end office (e.g. by polarity reversal on D.C. trunks from SxS) it removes the 2600Hz which Atlanta then recognizes as the signal to start billing.
At the end of the call, of course, Atlanta then releases the trunk by applying 2600Hz in the forward direction and Los Angeles acknowledges by re-applying 2600 on the return path to show the trunk as being vacant.
That's how I could see it working, obviously with 2600Hz filters on the incoming trunk at Atlanta so that ring, busy, intercept recordings can be heard by the caller without the loud tone being present.
1.