atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Terminal hunt question

Hey everyone! First of all, this forum is a wonderful resource and I'm very glad I ran across it in my Google search. Now, my question:

Our small business has three CO voice lines through our local provider, AT&T. For the purposes of my question, I will label them as the following:

- Line 1 (XXX-1321) Our advertised main #
- Line 2 (XXX-2130)
- Line 3 (XXX-1149)

For many years, we had a basic hunt group set up on these lines. If 1321 was busy and someone called that number it would roll to 2130, and if both 1321 and 2130 were busy it would roll to 1149. The downside to this arrangement was any outgoing calls placed on 2130 and 1149 would show these numbers on a customer's caller ID instead of our main line.

We were getting ready to install a new phone system, so we decided to remedy the caller ID problem at the same time. I called AT&T, told them what we wanted to happen, and they set up a Terminal hunt. They told us we would still have three lines but only the 1321 number assigned to them all now.

So, they made the change and I made test calls from all of our lines (btw, we have a key system) to my cell phone and the caller ID showed 1321 on all three lines. Yay! Except...

Now the incoming calls seem to be switching which line order they ring in on. For instance, if all lines are free, the call will ring on Line 1 the first time. When we hang up that call and all lines are free again, the next call rings on Line 2. When we hang up that call and all lines are free again, the next call rings on Line 3. And then it starts all over again. Whereas with the basic hunt group we used to have, calls would always ring on Line 1 first as long as it remained open.

So, my question is: Is that the way a terminal hunt is required to work or can it be changed to always ring a certain line first as long the line's open? I asked a rep this question and she basically didn't know.

Thanks for your help!

No. That hunt called Circular. Means that every next call will come on next available line in the Group. That means that AT&T change the Hunt Group you are having right now from Terminal to Circular and has to be changed by your request.

I don't believe they had to change it to Circular Hunt to make the same number show on all 3 lines.
Terminal Hunt can actually mean 2 different things, which may or may not both be designated for the same hunt group.
1 The inbound calls begin with line 1 and progress to the last line in the hunt group and the hunt 'terminates' when the incoming call either goes to an available line position, or busy signal if there are no available line positions.
2. Lines are 'Terminals' with consecutive TERMINAL Numbers that are all assigned to the same PHONE number. i.e. xxx-1321, terminals 1, 2, and 3. The TERMINAL numbers are for bookkeeping purposes. If the repair guy has a report that xxx-1321 is open, he has to know which TERMINAL so that he can work on the correct TERMINAL.
And now you know more than you wanted. John C.

Thanks for your help.

When I call into AT&T "Terminal hunt" is the term they've been using when we talk about what we have set up. That's why I repeated it here.

I'm still confused though. Is there anyway I can achieve the following? Ideally, this is how I want the lines to work:

1. Outgoing calls made on all three lines will show up as coming from 1321. (This is currently working.) (As a reminder, we only have the 1321 number now. Lines 2 and 3 do not have their own dedicated phone number.)

2. Line 1 (1321) has priority. Calls will always start to ring on this line if it's open.

3. Line 2 has second priority. Calls will only ring here if Line 1 is busy.

4. Line 3 has third priority. Calls will only ring here if both Line 1 and Line 2 are busy.

Items 2-4 are not currently working this way.

So, is there some way to accomplish what I'm seeking? If so, what do I tell AT&T that I need? When I've spoken with them, they don't seem to understand.

Before you call AT&T again to have any changes made I want you to know something. I have been installing phone systems for years and on numerous occasions I have attempted to accomplish for my customers what you have accomplished here.

I'm serious! As soon as I read your first post I wanted to call AT&T to see if they are offering a new service as of late that I could implement for several of my customers.

I know you want all calls to come in on line 1 when dormant but don't tinker with this to the point that the single CID on outgoing calls is lost by accident.

Now as far as the CIRCULAR terminology. I previously understood that if you had Circular Hunting if a call came in on 1149 it would roll to 1321. :shrug:

I did exactly what "onehandoneheart" did with my CO lines. I have a main number and 4 other "random" numbers in a hunt group and didn't want these other numbers going out as our number on CID so I called AT&T and they changed lines 2-5 to "terminals". (term. 0001-0004). My hunt order is still main number, term 0001, term 0002, etc. It appears that AT&T has accidentally programmed your lines for a UCD (uniform call distribution) type of arrangement. You need to explain to them that you want your lines to hunt in a particular order (I.e. main number, term 0001,term 0002), not uniformly.
There seems to be some confusion with terminology here too. A "terminal" line is simply a POTS or trunk line (LS or GS) that is associated with a main number but has no individuality. It cannot be called directly. It almost always is in a hunt group with a main number and other terminals making up a "hunt group". There are a few different types of "hunting", "terminal"and "circular". "Terminal hunting" starts at the main number and hunts through all the lines until it finds an idol one and processes the call. A "Circular hunt" does the same thing but will "wrap around" from the last line to the first line if need be. A "terminal line" and a "terminal hunt" are two different things even though most "terminal lines" are arranged in a "terminal hunt" sequence.
Is that confusing enough?

Not sure if they do this now, but years ago, small town COs often gave terminal lines to businesses so that they wouldn't use up all of their numbers.

Thanks everyone for chiming in so far! I think I pretty much got it! Hehe.

tlb, of course, Wikipedia isn't the most reliable of sources, but I found an entry on line hunting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_group

To me, it looks like I need what Wikipedia calls "linear/serial" hunting. Does that sound right?

I think you are making a big deal out of this. Your problem is with AT&T. All you need to do is describe the problem and what you want to somebody with some intellegence. Tell them you want the lines to hunt from line one to line two to line three AND IT'S NOT FRIGGIN' DOING THAT! If the person that you talk to can't figure that out tell them to get a job with the cable company.

What you want is probably the most common hunting arrangement and is done at least a million times a day.

-Hal

I was always under the impression that if a call hit your last number in hunt and it was busy, the caller would get a busy signal, that CO hunt groups were one-way only. It makes sense especially in the case of the OP with only 3 lines. Line 1 busy, try line 2, line 2 busy, try line 3, line 3 busy, what would the purpose be to go try line 1 again?