Eircom Land Line Technical specifications

smhd

Hi All,

I hope somebody can help me with the specifications of an Eircom land line.

I am setting up a pbx and I have a problem with the detection of line disconnects : ie. the eircom line terminates a call but the PBX does not recognise the call has terminated.

Does anybody know :

what disconnect method do they use : current, tone or polarity and any associated timings for current disconnect ?

Or if somebody can point me where I can get the full spec of the eircom land lines it would be great.

Thanks in advance.

Regards
SMHD

619C

Hi,
There is no 'clear down' signal in Ireland from Eircom.

This will result in problems for you.

Suggestions are as follows:
'Train' your voicemail to detect the tone that sounds after a hangup.
Setup the PBX to do a reversal if an Internal phone hangs up.
Get ISDN
Regards

smhd

Just got rid of my ISDN line and changed by broadband supplier. I am using a Grandstream GXE5024 VOIP PBX and it is working great except for this problem. I have posted a message on the Grandstream forum and it seems that my problem may be a firmware 'feature'.
Regards,
SMHD

Solair

The eircom network uses a busy tone to indicate the call has been terminated. There is no voltage or polarity signalling used for that purpose at all.

The exchange can be setup to send a 12khz tone to tell you when a call connects. In the past, when charging was unit-based, they were able to give you advice of charge using this, but these days most calls are in bundled packages so it's irrelevant other than to tell you the call's connected. The feature also used to control payphones i.e. debit one unit per beep.

Exchanges used to cut the power to the line, but that feature seems to have dropped as it causes problems with DSL. Nowadays it will just play a busy tone indefinitely or, possibly go silent eventually.

Most PBX installations in Ireland of any serious size are connected digitally, so it's usually not an issue. ISDN signalling will indicate that the call's dropped.

If your PBX has any localisation settings, try selecting France rather than UK as the signaling systems used there are pretty much identical to eircom, other than the ringing tone.

eircom's switching equipment has a lot more in common with France Telecom than anywhere else in Europe as the first batch of digital switches put in here in the 1980s were French-designed Alcatel E10 and later Ericsson AXE, but programmed to behave the same way.

It has nothing in common with the UK system or the US.

Basically, you need to get it to recognise a busy tone as 'clear down'.

Solair

Click below :

http://web.archive.org/web/20000505063206/http://www.eircomlab.com/PSTN.htm

smhd

Thanks Solair for the feedback. I have since found out that there seems to be an issue with the firmware version (the latest version) that I am using on the PBX and other people have reported the same problem. I have also changed the model setting to France !

Thanks again for you help.

SMHD

Solair

Cool, I would be curious to know if that French setting causes it to hang up correctly

smhd

Unfortunately not. I plan to get around the problem by forwarding my PSTN line to my SIP number until a software revision is provided.
Regards,
SMHD

PS: The information is the link was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.