Getting the Basics of Dedicated Outbound Troubleshooting

When you troubleshoot a dedicated circuit, you do it in the reverse order that you troubleshoot switched phone lines. If you have a problem calling Hoboken, New Jersey, on a switched phone line, for example, you should perform your troubleshooting before you call your carrier and open up a trouble ticket. When it comes to dedicated circuits, however, you begin your troubleshooting after you open the ticket.

The reason you should open your trouble ticket forthwith is because you don't have many testing options on a circuit without the aid of a technician from your carrier. You might know that your circuit isn't working, but only your carrier can tell that 10 of your channels are in an RMB state and 14 are in IDL. Even if you know the problem you are experiencing is caused by your hardware, you should still open a trouble ticket to receive help validating the source.

Remember The troubleshooting steps in this tutorial deal with a simple dedicated long-distance voice circuit with one local loop provider. If you have a type 2 or type 3 circuit that involves more than one carrier to deliver the local loop, the troubleshooting process is more involved. One thing I do suggest is that you put all the carriers involved in your circuit on a conference call at the same time.