Telecom Call Minder Disruptions

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willnz

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#17999 21-Dec-2007 12:50

It seems all Telecom landline call minder mailboxes aren't working at the moment - I've tried 3 different numbers and all go to an overloading message....

Wonder who tripped over the cable?

ARF1

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#104861 14-Jan-2008 22:32

What do you expect when the equipment is as old as 15 years, and the replacement project is years behind and hugely over budget ?

freitasm

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#104864 14-Jan-2008 23:02

No, the equipment is not 15 years old.

I know because I was with Unisys New Zealand for eight years working on the Telecom account. They have some new equipment there, and some old. But not 15 years old.

The "overload" message is played for a series of reasons. Most of the times is not because of the voice platform, but channels. the voice platform runs on four mainframes, with full redundancy.

For a couple of years the entire platform registered 100% uptime. Sorry to disappoint you but I think it's something else.

Perhaps they are moving some mailboxes and these are temporarily unavailable during the transition?

The plan was to have the platform migrated this month, perhaps they are doing it over the weeks?

As for the replacement project being behind - this is probably true...

willnz

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#104869 14-Jan-2008 23:40

I'd say they were moving it - it was only down for an hour or two. Probably wanted to do it while everyone was running around buying christmas stuffs! :p

old3eyes

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#104894 15-Jan-2008 08:44

freitasm:

The plan was to have the platform migrated this month, perhaps they are doing it over the weeks?

As for the replacement project being behind - this is probably true...

Do you think that they will fix the message wait lamp turn off problem that's been there since 1991??

Regards,

Old3eyes

willnz

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#104896 15-Jan-2008 08:56

There's no problems on the Telecom network. Just "features" !

Bung

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#104913 15-Jan-2008 10:22

old3eyes:

Do you think that they will fix the message wait lamp turn off problem that's been there since 1991??

Wouldn't that be a phone problem? The platform can only signal stutter dial tone or not.

If it is a phone problem then I doubt that anyone at Telecom knows enough to care anymore.

freitasm

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#105047 15-Jan-2008 20:03

I got some juicy information from an unnamed source today... It appears that some of the equipment is fifteen years - but there are newer bits and piecs. The problem is tht those machines older than ten years do not have factory support anymore so any failure gets in the way.

The migration project is a bit over budget and delayed. Let's just say they are moving the first voice mailboxes around now, when the original project was to be completed by the end of 2005...

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paradoxsm

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#105057 15-Jan-2008 20:55

When the old Voicemail system started getting seriously overloaded about 2001, did anyone notice how they changed it to now reminds you that the message saved has now expired and you cannot "key ahead" the "save for another ten days" function until the voice stops?

Another flaw I pointed out was the line indentification and how CLI could be spoofed using modern Voip, then they got hit 6 months later.

Yet another glitch I quickly worked out was the fact you could just press * when you heard someones greeting and instead enter your own mailbox number/pin and check it for free. (if you dialled an 0800 number from example)

You can store 20 messages for 20 days instead of 10 mesages forever as people were just leaving them on there for years. I have messages from 1997 still in one of my mailboxes, I never figured out how it managed to retain the exact same mailbox when I upgraded this one 025 phone number to 027.

Do any of the servers use p-pro's and multi-line brooktrout cards? I just got a pile of equipment ranging from Wyse terminals to these weird boxes which looked like old voice services machines used for something unknown.

freitasm

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#105063 15-Jan-2008 21:20

The VSP (soon to be decommisione) runs in four Unisys mainframes with TSPs links to Telecom.

Jughead

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#105158 16-Jan-2008 11:20

Intresting bit of Trivia...

Telecom is one of the few Telco's in the world that allows customers to save messages beyond thier expiry date. A feature that we have taken full atvantage of, there is something like 600,000 messages in the system that are over 90 days old!

Any views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily represent the views of my employer Telecom NZ