Phone migration from BT With CISCO SPA232D ATA

[#1]

Hi,

I migrated from BT this morning, apparently at 05.00am.  Outgoing calls OK, incoming calls not ringing through.

I use a CISCO SPA232D ATA to terminate the analogue line, which is a relatively unusual piece of equipment with a lot of settings.  It worked flawlessly with BT for over 4 years.

I can get SOME but not ALL incoming calls to answer on the plus.net line if I change the SPA232D  'ring validation time' from 256ms to 100ms (the shortest setting) and change the 'line in use' voltage from 30V to 10V.  The green-light 'line available' goes out if I move the in-use voltage above 20V or so.

Anyone else had similar issues and managed to get it to work?  Plus.net support say they have tested the line and nothing is wrong and I should call CISCO, which of course is not that helpful as I know how the SPA232D works, just not why the plus.net line voltage and ringing cadence is not matching that of BT.

regards,

[#2]

A warm welcome to the forums.

The physical line and it’s characteristics do not change in swapping who you pay for the service. Personally (I’m just a customer) would suspect a line termination issue, not the phone unit.

Take a standard phone. Dial 17070 and confirm that the line number is correct.

Phone a mobile - check the number displayed is correct.

Call your number - confirm the number rings the standard phone.

If all of that works, you have a problem with your termination equipment. If anything does not work as expected, then there’s a line fault.

[#3]

Thanks for the reply, its all sorted now.  I agree, I see no reason why a migration should change the physical characteristics on the line unless the carrier uses local loop unbundling (only Talk Talk and Sky have done so on my exchange).

We do have a standard phone on an extension in the bedroom.  I had turned the ringer on that (its normally turned off) and it wasn't ringing either.  After my first post I then moved the phone to the main extension and it did ring.  I then measured the line voltage with a multimeter and it was 47.8.  Issue(s) clearly with my equipment and the house wiring.

In the end I discovered

- lack of ringing in the bedroom on the standard phone is because wire to pin 3 of that extension got detached near the "master socket".  BT had replaced this when we had a genuine (external) line fault earlier in the year.

 - lack of ringing on the CISCO SPA232D was nothing to do with line conditions, as I can now see from the answered and unanswered call logs.  During the day of migration the way CLIP was presented to my phone changed on several occasions (sometimes withheld, sometimes unavailable, sometimes with caller ID presented). 

- after 15:00 on the day of migration (Monday), all was working as usual again, with CLIP working consistently, and incoming calls being answered after 2 rings by the equipment.

I'm not at all sure why that happened, but the moral of the story for me is to never assume there is only one fault when trying to work out what is going on....

[#4]

Removal of the bell wire. This is normal and is done to remove the potential of picking up electrical noise and thereby degrading the xDSL signal. Modem phones should be capable of generating the ring tone from the A-B pair, if not inserting a filter should do that.

Indeed three lessons here...

1. Never assume there’s just one issue
2. Never assume association with a concurrent event
3. When in doubt simplify matters to basics, reduce the complexity of the set up and prove the fundamentals work first

Hope all continues to be well for you.

[#5]

Glad to hear all sorted now.

Reminds me of the time around 1990-ish when I was using a long ladder to paint the soffits at the front of the house. While moving the ladder it fouled the dropwire, with not a little force.

A little while later I found there was no dial tone on the line - dead as mutton - no battery or earth on either leg.

Spent a fruitless hour or so trying to find a working phone kiosk - only to find subsequently that a major fault had occurred at the exchange and that half the town was off.

The dropwire was fine.