Question about Meridian Mail 12 and "VCON" signal 1

[T1PSTN]

Hardware:

Option 61c -- Succession 3.0
MerMail 12
16 voiceports -- programmed as SL1 sets
PRI (NI2) for DID and outbound.

Problem:

My company is currently evaluating a wardial system for the detection of unauthorized modems. The wardialer calls into the DID range, and if modems answer, it runs some scripts to attempt identification of the DCE. That part works fine.

The symptom that we're encountering is that when the wardialer calls a user-phone and MerMail picks-up, a blank (except for the 'clunk' of hangup) is left. Since the wardialer's modem and application are listening for a guide-tone of an answering modem, the application is supposed to hang-up after, say, two seconds of failure to detect same. So, in other words, the wardialer can recognize that it's not connecting to a modem by the fact that a voicemail greeting does not contain the guide tone component of a modem-answer.

Indeed, their system does acknowledge that a greeting (not a modem) has answered. Their modem does not immediately hang up, though.

After engaing the vendor for a week of testing on the reasons for this, I've discovered that their disconnect request arrives over my DID's DCH a few seconds later than their application signals its modem to hang-up-- Which explains the blank messages.

The wardialer vendor claims that my systems are the only ones which give them this trouble and claim that my system does not give a "VCON" when the mail port answers the call. It's believed that the absence of this VCON is the reason for the latency in the wardialer's hang-up.

My questions are:

Has anyone heard of this VCON term? It sounds like a wink or something from the way that the vendor's tech described it to me.

Are there any settings in MerMail, on the PRI, or the mail port-sets that could be suppressing the VCON?

Thanks in advance,

--T1PSTN

 

[mluckie1]

I cann't remember hearing of this. Try and monitor the DChannel message and see if the connect message is sent to the carrier. You might try and call a known DID and answer the call manually to see if you get the same trouble. the only other thing I can think of attempting would be to out the SL1's and rebuild as M2008 sets. Succession may have a problem with the SL1 setting I know that Nortel dropped support for those types of sets around release 25 or so. Check also how the Loop is built in the CEQU and that the QPC414 is a C vintage.

 

[T1PSTN]

Yeah, I’ve seen the connect DCH message at the very instant that the mail port takes the call-- No delay there.

I’ll try changing the mailports to 2008’s. That’s a good suggestion.

Thanks,

T1PSTN

P.S. Has anyone else ever heard of this VCON (possibly wink on answer) deal?

 

[T1PSTN]

I'm not sure that I can build the mail ports as 2008s...

REQ: new
TYPE: 2008
TN 2 0 2 7
SCH1469
TN !
>err sch1469
>

SCH1469
Loop/Shelf/Card/Unit you are trying to access is disabled because the
support to this hardware has been stopped. No further operations on
these TNs are possible. Please use overlay 81 to list all the
components that are affected on your system.

Severity: Minor

Looks like you were right about the hardware support with 3.0



--T1PSTN

 

[mluckie1]

Must be one of those EOL things, never heard that term from Nortel until the early 2000's. So I guess it's redefine the loop in cequ then. If your ports were defined as SL1's I'm guessing it may have been upgraded several times.

 

[T1PSTN]

Mluckie1,

Yes, this old grey lady's been upgraded quite a few times over the past (I think) 6 years. If I change the CEQU for the loop(s), could that conflict with the vintage of my VP cards? I've never tried it before.

Thanks again,

--T1PSTN

 

[mluckie1]

Shouldn't be a problem. I'd check the NTP's first but if they are VP4 or VP8 cards, which I doubt, no problem.