atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems Other Telephones & Systems Now work with an AT&T 5ESS

Ok...I got the "South" part correct.

I lost track of who now owns who, what company acquired another, etc. It seems most companies with a local reference in their name are gone, such as banks that have a state, city/town or region in their name. Southern New England Telephone was acquired by Frontier Communications a few years ago, I'll sometimes still refer to the local telco as SNET.

If anyone still works on the 5ESS or knows - I wonder if there's a way to have an extension, or TN, go directly to voicemail without being on a port, or LEN? We have many spare analog LENs with more to come, but I haven't come up with a way to do it yet. Looked at some main department numbers in the system that go to a menu, those were on LENs.

If the 5Es are going away and the DMS is going away and the GTD-5s are gone....

What's left?

What is running the Network!?!?!?!


Sam

Yes the migration to VoIP has been underway for a few years, but due to Covid and other reasons it's been a very slow one.

I helped out a couple times in the switchroom moving cable pairs for the techs. It wasn't with a punch down tool, but a manual wire wrap tool! It's been many years since I've used one of those. Old technology is still here, for a little while at least. I still have a highly modified 1A2 system at home. Behind the living room couch is a 25 pair cable connected to a 66 block. One of several 'IDFs' in the house. Unlike the 5ESS I work with, the home system won't be decommissioned.

Verizon is migrating to packet switching switches. I suppose in areas where FiOS isn't available, Verizon will migrate users to the new switches and reuse existing OSP copper.

To answer Ed's question, AT&T gear that understood NI-1 and NI-2 was never the issue. It was AT&T's older "Custom" protocol that was a very minor hurdle for DMS. The old saw was to ask the switch guy to use NTNAPRI and set the sub-trunk L1 Flag to yes. My stuff would be optioned as DMS100.

We had a guy come fly in to train a couple of new guys who will work primarily on the switch and frame. He asked me to give a basic configuration lesson to them. You can tell he's an old C.O, guy - what I refer to as software and config he calls it 'Translations'.

When I was with Siemens I did a lot of PRI work. NI-2 I believe was the most common D-Channel protocol, I think 5ESS was an option too.

Guilty as charged using "translations". I still have a habit of using terms that aren't as familiar or PC these days: I still say "dike" and "buttset" or might suggest using a "slave printer" or other device when I should say "dedicated" (but that's what we said in the 70's and 80's). "Strap DTR high" or "Strap 'autoanswer' to on" might be better read today as "set". A little off topic. Thanks Keyset6.

You're welcome dagwood systems. I assume you're referring pin 20 on a Db25 connector for 'DTR high', meaning for a modem. I think I could usually get a modem operational with pins 1,2,3,4,5, 6 & 20. 7 was sometimes connected to 1 (ground).I wouldn't consider this totally off topic - I'm told the company that supports the 5E remotely 'dials in' a couple times a day via modem.

The other terms you mentioned I consider common. Even T, R, A, A1, LG, L I understand.

On the DMS side of the aisle, Ribbon is using the C15 and C20 softswitches. We collapsed two DMS10 switches into a single C15. The nice thing is the C15 is capable of still supporting the DMS's LCE line bays. Same with those still using GR303. We are in the process of migrating to SIP, but the C15/C20 will still handle TDM.