Getting the Least You Need to Know about Your Phone System

You should have enough information about your phone system so that you can perform basic troubleshooting functions. The more you know, the fewer the crisis situations you’ll face. You don’t want to have to call out your hardware vendor and pay the hourly rate of a Ferrari mechanic for some minor issue. Instead, invite the tech to visit once, and take very good notes in the following areas:

• What are the different devices in the phone closet and what do they do?

• How do you power up and power down each of the devices in the phone closet? What is the worst thing that can happen if you suddenly turn on or off the devices in the phone closet? Perhaps a sudden power outage returns all the settings to the factory default, which means that you have to reprogram everything!

• What does turning one piece of hardware off and back on do to the rest of the system? Is there a certain sequence for rebooting devices in the system?

• What do the lights on the equipment mean? You probably see green, yellow, red, and possibly blue lights on telecom equipment. A brief course in what red lights flashing on the channel bank mean will go a long way in shortening your troubleshooting.

• Is there a button on the channel service unit (CSU) or phone system that you can push to generate a loop on the system? You really don’t even need to know what a loop is; just note the button you need to push to make it happen. I cover loops in great detail in Chapter 14.