TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Update: Vonage Ring Problem

Re: Update: Vonage Ring Problem

Steve Crow (scrow@stevecrow.net)
Sun, 14 Nov 2004 23:54:15 GMT

Tony P. wrote:

> Ah yes, I should have mentioned that I tried the terminator also. That
> also gives a < 2 second connection time.

> It's funny how spoiled you get by the incumbent carrier though. Punch a
> 7 digit number with no terminator and the call connects immediately.

> Probably because they've got all sorts of ARS and routing tables set
> up to handle it. Kind of hard to do on a little Linksys router.

Not necessarily. When Sprint (former Centel) replaced the aging
TRW-Vidar switch in Montpelier, VA with a shiny new Nortel DMS-100 in
late-1999, the DMS was set up to wait for additional digits on
anything that was not a local exchange (of which there are a whopping
THREE). So unless you're dialing 883-xxxx, 227-xxxx, or 449-xxxx,
there's a 4-digit delay at the end while it waits for more
digits. Hitting [#] expedites the call. It even does this with 10- or
11-digit dialing (local or long distance), and 3-digit dialing (411,
611, 711, 811, and presumably 911).

Irrelevent to the topic at hand, but interesting nonetheless: The old
Vidar handled the prefix of "1" as well as the local area code (804)
quite strangely. If I wanted to dial a local call, I could not put 804
in front of it; it would roll the call to intercept. If I wanted to
dial a long-distance call in the same area code, I did not need the
"1". I could dial 1-749-xxxx, or I could do 804-749-xxxx, since it
treated the "804" as a "1". I could also do 1-804-749-xxxx, or (and
this was fun) 804-804-749-xxxx (the first "804" was treated as a
"1"). Also amusing was out-of-area-code long distance:
804-540-829-xxxx would work. Time and temperature, however, was simply
8463. :)

The new DMS still won't allow the area code in front of a local
exchange.

You just can't do fun stuff like this with these newfangled VoIP
boxes. Personally, I want my Vidar back.

Steve

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