How to activate an Analogue Line

Patching an analogue device to your Mediatrix

colin jones avatar
Written by colin jones
Updated over a week ago

Introduction

In this guide we will take you through how to activate and patch an Analogue Line, first we will take you through adding the Analogue Line Service.

Adding the Analogue Service

First we need to add the Analogue Line Service to the client please see this guide here on how to add services within Connect.

Now the service has been added an automatic case will be created, we will be in touch to confirm the number you would like setup for the Analogue Line this can be an Active Number or Reserved number within Telephone Manager see guide here.

Patching the Analogue Line


Before we start the next step, please make sure you have the following:

  • The floor port you will be plugging the fax machine into (should be labelled in the tenant’s office on or near the wall jack)

  • The Port number that has been configured for this service (should have been provided to you within the case provided by the essensys engineer)

  • An Ethernet cable

  • Access to your comms room

Steps

  1. In the comms room (where all the networking equipment is stored), locate the Mediatrix/Cisco SPA. 

  2. From the Mediatrix/Cisco SPA, there will be a large white cable that connects to a black, 24-port patch panel. This patch panel is separate from the floor port patch panel that users’ phones and end devices connect to (see below graphic). The engineer who provisioned the analogue line will have told you which port on the Mediatrix/Cisco SPA they’ve configured for the service. Locate this port and plug one end of your Ethernet cable to it. 

  3. From the Mediatrix’s/Cisco SPA port on the patch panel, you will need to connect the other end of the Ethernet cable to the port on the floor port patch panel that correlates to the floor port in the client’s office. The end result of the cabling should look like the following:

  • A – Ethernet cable connections from the Extreme (or other vendor) switch to the floor port patch panel. The Ethernet cords connect from the front of the Extreme switch into the back of the patch panel. More Ethernet cables are plugged into the front of this same patch panel. These are the Ethernet cable connections that run throughout the walls/ceilings to the back of the wall jacks in tenants' offices. The front of the wall jack is where you would plug Ethernet cables to end devices like phones, PCs, printers, etc. (For the purposes of this article, we can ignore these cable connections, they were included for informational reasons only.)

  • B – Ethernet cable connection from the Extreme switch to the Mediatrix.

  • C – The thick white cord (called a 25-pin amphenol cable) that connects from the Mediatrix to the back of the Mediatrix patch panel.

  • D - Ethernet cable connection between the Mediatrix patch panel (referenced in step 2) and the floor port patch panel (referenced in step 3). This is the only connection you will need to create when in the comms room, all the others (A, B and C) should already be connected.
    4. Once this is completed, you can return to the tenant’s office and plug their powered up fax machine to the wall jack.

Testing

To test functionality after you’ve connected the fax to the floor port and it’s powered up, you can:

  • Dial the DDI of the analogue line from another phone. After a few rings, you should hear the fax tone. If you don’t please make sure your fax machine is set to “auto-answer” calls (check your fax machine’s manual for how to configure/check this) and test again.

  • Try to send and receive faxes to/from a KNOWN WORKING fax or,

  • Plug in an analogue phone to the wall jack (instead of the fax) and confirm that you hear a dial tone.

If any of these tests fail, please try reseating or replacing the Ethernet cable connection between the fax and the wall jack, and/or the Ethernet cable connection between the floor port patch panel and the Mediatrix patch panel in the comms room.

Some fax machines will need to have their settings adjusted for faxing over VoIP. Optimal settings for faxing over VoIP are to set baud rate to 9600 and turn off error correction mode.

If you have any questions/concerns regarding patching a fax machine to your Mediatrix/Cisco SPA, please raise a case via the Support tab in Connect.

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