POTS EOL?
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We are looming at a virtual.pots service that supposedly works with alarm panels for communications. They have one that back hauls over cellular and one that is an ATA to sip with battery backup built in. We will see which works better
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@pete-s said in POTS EOL?:
@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
uh - whats IP? VOIP is IP, does it really matter if you have an ATA in the picture?
Hell, yes it matters. Alarm systems may dial the central with DTMF tones but when they start communicating it's a totally different ballgame.
If voip could transfer all the analog audio signals exactly as they appear without any jitter or compression then it would work flawlessly. But that is not how voip works. To save bandwidth voip compresses the shit out of the audio signal. If the receiving modem can understand what the sender is saying then it work, but if it's too garbled the receiving end can't understand and it won't work. That's why it might work sometimes and sometimes not.
So, to throw some relevant tech info from another lifetime (once upon a time I worked call center for VoIP and ISP). One of the main factors to be able to run alarm or fax over a voip ata is the ata's ability to support G711 or G722 audio. This is likely going to be impacted by latency and / or jitter on the underlying internet connection. If the ATA is left in an auto-selection mode (or is centrally managed by the VoIP provider) it might be too eager to use a lower bandwidth codec which might not transmit the full frequency range needed for analog systems.
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@dustinb3403 said in POTS EOL?:
@pete-s said in POTS EOL?:
@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
uh - whats IP? VOIP is IP, does it really matter if you have an ATA in the picture?
Hell, yes it matters. Alarm systems may dial the central with DTMF tones but when they start communicating it's a totally different ballgame.
If voip could transfer all the analog audio signals exactly as they appear without any jitter or compression then it would work flawlessly. But that is not how voip works.
You still have these issues with traditional POTS though too, except that the systems that used these POTS services understood and could deal with the issue.
It was not the same issues really. The entire PSTN was analog from the beginning and a lot of the modem technology was developed during that time.
So jitter and compression wasn't something the modem took into account but you had other artifacts such as noise and disturbances. As speeds got higher the modems would become smarter and smarter but not that smart.
When the PSTN started to go digital you could have the same problems as today with voip, meaning compression artifacts, jitter etc. Sending files long distance using modems or sending fax overseas would also sometime be troublesome and take a couple of tries before it worked. That was just how it was in the 80s and 90s. Today we expect our digital communication to work better than that though.
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@notverypunny said in POTS EOL?:
@pete-s said in POTS EOL?:
@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
uh - whats IP? VOIP is IP, does it really matter if you have an ATA in the picture?
Hell, yes it matters. Alarm systems may dial the central with DTMF tones but when they start communicating it's a totally different ballgame.
If voip could transfer all the analog audio signals exactly as they appear without any jitter or compression then it would work flawlessly. But that is not how voip works. To save bandwidth voip compresses the shit out of the audio signal. If the receiving modem can understand what the sender is saying then it work, but if it's too garbled the receiving end can't understand and it won't work. That's why it might work sometimes and sometimes not.
So, to throw some relevant tech info from another lifetime (once upon a time I worked call center for VoIP and ISP). One of the main factors to be able to run alarm or fax over a voip ata is the ata's ability to support G711 or G722 audio. This is likely going to be impacted by latency and / or jitter on the underlying internet connection. If the ATA is left in an auto-selection mode (or is centrally managed by the VoIP provider) it might be too eager to use a lower bandwidth codec which might not transmit the full frequency range needed for analog systems.
This table is pretty interesting and show what you're talking about as well as put some actual numbers on what is need for faxing over voip.
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@dustinb3403 said in POTS EOL?:
@pete-s said in POTS EOL?:
@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
uh - whats IP? VOIP is IP, does it really matter if you have an ATA in the picture?
Hell, yes it matters. Alarm systems may dial the central with DTMF tones but when they start communicating it's a totally different ballgame.
If voip could transfer all the analog audio signals exactly as they appear without any jitter or compression then it would work flawlessly. But that is not how voip works.
You still have these issues with traditional POTS though too, except that the systems that used these POTS services understood and could deal with the issue.
Very true. We have customers coming from POTS reporting failure rates above 10% for faxing because the audio quality just isn't good enough to let the message through. The idea that POTS was ultra reliable is a myth. Every customer with it has audio and reliability issues. And back in the 80s and 90s, it was far worse. People just accepted that those systems were going to suck because it was all that there was.
People expect VoIP to do miracles that they never expected of POTS. And now run what is essentially "email over voice calls" that never worked well, and then instead of utilizing the new tech, run the same bandaid solution over yet another layer that can't make it better and can only strive to only make it trivially worse. It's terrible.
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@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
I received an email this morning
anyone else heard of this EOL on copper pair?
Not that I have any - everything I have is Cox - analog over cable.
Yep, Century Link kicked us off in Feb with 30 day's notice. Scrambled to ATT and now paying $80 per line when we were paying $22.
Why did you stick with copper?
Stupid faxes and fire alarm. Like you, we get thousands of pages a month. Also, at the time we found out our fire alarm does not have a wireless option either. UGH. Just a crap show....
Then you have to ask... is it really a fire alarm? What happens when the fire takes out the cable? I'd leave any service like that. For a fire alarm, you need a certain minimum standard and this falls below any reasonable level of acceptance.
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@pete-s said in POTS EOL?:
@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
uh - whats IP? VOIP is IP, does it really matter if you have an ATA in the picture?
Hell, yes it matters. Alarm systems may dial the central with DTMF tones but when they start communicating it's a totally different ballgame.
If voip could transfer all the analog audio signals exactly as they appear without any jitter or compression then it would work flawlessly. But that is not how voip works. To save bandwidth voip compresses the shit out of the audio signal. If the receiving modem can understand what the sender is saying then it work, but if it's too garbled the receiving end can't understand and it won't work. That's why it might work sometimes and sometimes not.
I don't know how this relates to the GSM or IP you mentioned that my comment was comment to.
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@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
I received an email this morning
anyone else heard of this EOL on copper pair?
Not that I have any - everything I have is Cox - analog over cable.
Yep, Century Link kicked us off in Feb with 30 day's notice. Scrambled to ATT and now paying $80 per line when we were paying $22.
Why did you stick with copper?
Stupid faxes and fire alarm. Like you, we get thousands of pages a month. Also, at the time we found out our fire alarm does not have a wireless option either. UGH. Just a crap show....
Yeah, but copper?
Unfortunately copper has worked best. We have clients who are die hard faxer's that like to send 50+ page faxes on occasion. I have one ATA currently and had two different ATA's in the past. As @syko24 has mentioned, I find ATA's a hit and miss also. Then retransmissions start and the client likes to restart from page 1.
I do currently have one ATA in "testing" mode that starts having issue around page 40-45. Anything less seems to have a 90% success rate.
The alarm company wants copper for the current system we have. It requires two lines as they want redundancy. I do use these two lines as fax lines also, to squeak out a little more value.
I notice efax costs keep coming down so I am hoping to move towards them in the future.
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@scottalanmiller said in POTS EOL?:
@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
I received an email this morning
anyone else heard of this EOL on copper pair?
Not that I have any - everything I have is Cox - analog over cable.
Yep, Century Link kicked us off in Feb with 30 day's notice. Scrambled to ATT and now paying $80 per line when we were paying $22.
Why did you stick with copper?
Stupid faxes and fire alarm. Like you, we get thousands of pages a month. Also, at the time we found out our fire alarm does not have a wireless option either. UGH. Just a crap show....
Then you have to ask... is it really a fire alarm? What happens when the fire takes out the cable? I'd leave any service like that. For a fire alarm, you need a certain minimum standard and this falls below any reasonable level of acceptance.
The alarm company calls when the signal gets interrupted after a period of time. Just like the would if the fire took out the router/fiber.
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I find ATA's a hit and miss also. Then retransmissions start and the client likes to restart from page 1.
Try @Skyetel fax solution.
https://support.skyetel.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500003980502-SkyeFax-Overview
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@jaredbusch said in POTS EOL?:
I find ATA's a hit and miss also. Then retransmissions start and the client likes to restart from page 1.
Try @Skyetel fax solution.
https://support.skyetel.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500003980502-SkyeFax-Overview
@JaredBusch any recommended ATA's that you use? I have used the Cisco SPA112 and one of the Grandstreams (can't remember the model number).
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@jaredbusch said in POTS EOL?:
I find ATA's a hit and miss also. Then retransmissions start and the client likes to restart from page 1.
Try @Skyetel fax solution.
https://support.skyetel.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500003980502-SkyeFax-Overview
@JaredBusch any recommended ATA's that you use? I have used the Cisco SPA112 and one of the Grandstreams (can't remember the model number).
I only use the Grandstream ATA line for pots handoff.
Previously the HT700 series and now the HT800 series.
I’ve used others but always come back to these.
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@jaredbusch said in POTS EOL?:
@jaredbusch said in POTS EOL?:
I find ATA's a hit and miss also. Then retransmissions start and the client likes to restart from page 1.
Try @Skyetel fax solution.
https://support.skyetel.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500003980502-SkyeFax-Overview
@JaredBusch any recommended ATA's that you use? I have used the Cisco SPA112 and one of the Grandstreams (can't remember the model number).
I only use the Grandstream ATA line for pots handoff.
Previously the HT700 series and now the HT800 series.
I’ve used others but always come back to these.
Same ones that we use.
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I do currently have one ATA in "testing" mode that starts having issue around page 40-45. Anything less seems to have a 90% success rate.
We are about to launch support for HTTPS fax, which should give SkyeFax a nearly 100% delivery success rate. Our ATAs that use T38 are about ~93% successful. That 7% is up to the Fax machine, not us.
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The alarm company calls when the signal gets interrupted after a period of time. Just like the would if the fire took out the router/fiber.
I strongly recommend switching your alarm and elevator phones to using SIM Cards. Most alarm companies and elevator companies offer this for a vanishingly small amount of money (like $30/yr or something tiny).
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@scottalanmiller said in POTS EOL?:
@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
I received an email this morning
anyone else heard of this EOL on copper pair?
Not that I have any - everything I have is Cox - analog over cable.
Yep, Century Link kicked us off in Feb with 30 day's notice. Scrambled to ATT and now paying $80 per line when we were paying $22.
Why did you stick with copper?
Stupid faxes and fire alarm. Like you, we get thousands of pages a month. Also, at the time we found out our fire alarm does not have a wireless option either. UGH. Just a crap show....
Then you have to ask... is it really a fire alarm? What happens when the fire takes out the cable? I'd leave any service like that. For a fire alarm, you need a certain minimum standard and this falls below any reasonable level of acceptance.
The alarm company calls when the signal gets interrupted after a period of time. Just like the would if the fire took out the router/fiber.
None of ours that had POTS was like that. They would call out. This is a direct phone line that is "always on" and talking? That's got to be insanely expensive.
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@scottalanmiller said in POTS EOL?:
@scottalanmiller said in POTS EOL?:
@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
I received an email this morning
anyone else heard of this EOL on copper pair?
Not that I have any - everything I have is Cox - analog over cable.
Yep, Century Link kicked us off in Feb with 30 day's notice. Scrambled to ATT and now paying $80 per line when we were paying $22.
Why did you stick with copper?
Stupid faxes and fire alarm. Like you, we get thousands of pages a month. Also, at the time we found out our fire alarm does not have a wireless option either. UGH. Just a crap show....
Then you have to ask... is it really a fire alarm? What happens when the fire takes out the cable? I'd leave any service like that. For a fire alarm, you need a certain minimum standard and this falls below any reasonable level of acceptance.
The alarm company calls when the signal gets interrupted after a period of time. Just like the would if the fire took out the router/fiber.
None of ours that had POTS was like that. They would call out. This is a direct phone line that is "always on" and talking? That's got to be insanely expensive.
Yeah that seems insane because the line would always be busy using minutes.....
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@dustinb3403 said in POTS EOL?:
@scottalanmiller said in POTS EOL?:
@scottalanmiller said in POTS EOL?:
@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
I received an email this morning
anyone else heard of this EOL on copper pair?
Not that I have any - everything I have is Cox - analog over cable.
Yep, Century Link kicked us off in Feb with 30 day's notice. Scrambled to ATT and now paying $80 per line when we were paying $22.
Why did you stick with copper?
Stupid faxes and fire alarm. Like you, we get thousands of pages a month. Also, at the time we found out our fire alarm does not have a wireless option either. UGH. Just a crap show....
Then you have to ask... is it really a fire alarm? What happens when the fire takes out the cable? I'd leave any service like that. For a fire alarm, you need a certain minimum standard and this falls below any reasonable level of acceptance.
The alarm company calls when the signal gets interrupted after a period of time. Just like the would if the fire took out the router/fiber.
None of ours that had POTS was like that. They would call out. This is a direct phone line that is "always on" and talking? That's got to be insanely expensive.
Yeah that seems insane because the line would always be busy using minutes.....
Yeah, Which on an Internet line is easy to do. But a traditional phone line that's a circuit tied up.
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@scottalanmiller said in POTS EOL?:
@scottalanmiller said in POTS EOL?:
@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
I received an email this morning
anyone else heard of this EOL on copper pair?
Not that I have any - everything I have is Cox - analog over cable.
Yep, Century Link kicked us off in Feb with 30 day's notice. Scrambled to ATT and now paying $80 per line when we were paying $22.
Why did you stick with copper?
Stupid faxes and fire alarm. Like you, we get thousands of pages a month. Also, at the time we found out our fire alarm does not have a wireless option either. UGH. Just a crap show....
Then you have to ask... is it really a fire alarm? What happens when the fire takes out the cable? I'd leave any service like that. For a fire alarm, you need a certain minimum standard and this falls below any reasonable level of acceptance.
The alarm company calls when the signal gets interrupted after a period of time. Just like the would if the fire took out the router/fiber.
None of ours that had POTS was like that. They would call out. This is a direct phone line that is "always on" and talking? That's got to be insanely expensive.
Apologies. It wasn't a constant connection but more like a "ping." I don't know the technical details but if the alarm system discovered no dial tone after X seconds/minutes, then try line 2, wait X, if nothing for either, wait one more cycle, if none, set alarm system to beep for a few minutes and check. If still nothing, call client to let them know to fix situation.
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@scottalanmiller said in POTS EOL?:
@scottalanmiller said in POTS EOL?:
@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
@dashrender said in POTS EOL?:
I received an email this morning
anyone else heard of this EOL on copper pair?
Not that I have any - everything I have is Cox - analog over cable.
Yep, Century Link kicked us off in Feb with 30 day's notice. Scrambled to ATT and now paying $80 per line when we were paying $22.
Why did you stick with copper?
Stupid faxes and fire alarm. Like you, we get thousands of pages a month. Also, at the time we found out our fire alarm does not have a wireless option either. UGH. Just a crap show....
Then you have to ask... is it really a fire alarm? What happens when the fire takes out the cable? I'd leave any service like that. For a fire alarm, you need a certain minimum standard and this falls below any reasonable level of acceptance.
The alarm company calls when the signal gets interrupted after a period of time. Just like the would if the fire took out the router/fiber.
None of ours that had POTS was like that. They would call out. This is a direct phone line that is "always on" and talking? That's got to be insanely expensive.
Apologies. It wasn't a constant connection but more like a "ping." I don't know the technical details but if the alarm system discovered no dial tone after X seconds/minutes, then try line 2, wait X, if nothing for either, wait one more cycle, if none, set alarm system to beep for a few minutes and check. If still nothing, call client to let them know to fix situation.
As someone that did alarm systems installation professionally, I can answer that easily.
For legacy POTS, an alarm system will have a 4 wire 22 awg cable ran from the POTS demarc to the the alarm system location.
At the demarc, the whatever is connected to the telco handoff posts will be removed. The green/red of the 4 wire will be put in it's place. The yellow/black will then be connected to whatever was removed from the demarc.
At the alarm panel there will be an RJ31X block installed. The RGYB will be terminated to the matching color posts. When nothing is plugged in to the RJ31X, the red and green are bridged back to the yellow and black, thus letting dial tone flow from the demarc to the RJ31X and back to WTFever was previously connected to the demarc. Once the alarm panel telco cable (not a standard RJ11) is connected to the RJ31X that bridge is physically lifted breaking the circuit back to the demarc. At this point relays inside the alarm panel are now the bridge completing the circuit back.
These relays allow the alarm panel to break the circuit to the premise at will. This enables it to disconnect an active call on the wire and then dial out to report what ever event needs reported.
Now on to how it knows if the line is there. This is simply a basic voltage check. When on hook (no active call), voltage on a POTS line is -48V DC. When off hook (on a call), voltage on a POTS line is anywhere from -4V to -9V DC give or take a volt. When ringing in, voltage on a POTS lines is -48V DC and 90V AC @ 20Hz on top of the DC voltage.
So because of all of this, alarm systems simply measure for -48V DC to be present at a fixed interval. If not present, most will also check for the off hook voltage. If that is not there, it will wait a programmed time and then test again. If it fails X number of times (depending on programming or manufacturer design) to detect voltage, it will attempt to seize the line to reset it and test again. If this fails, then you will see a warning on the keypad or control panel about a communications failure.
Additionally, if the voltages are all good, but it fails to dial out and talk to the central office at programmed times, or in the event of an alarm event, it will also show a communications failure. Whether or not that show differently than the no voltage failure depends on the alarm panel.
