Ability to receive faxes changed weekend of 8/23

Question

I have ... or *had* ... or am *supposed to have* 3 full feature lines.

all 3 lines are (were) set to hunt to each other (round-robin; 1->2->3->1). no one should ever get a busy signal unless all 3 lines are engaged.

all 3 lines are set to the caller ID of our published line (9797) so that we can call out of any line without having people call back in on our other lines. when we leave for the day, we forward only 9797 so that we have lines to call in to a back-door of our phone system. if anyone calls a line other than 9797, then they do not get forwarded as designed.

I have not had, and do not need, a dedicated fax line.

my phone system takes incoming calls and routes them to the fax machine if a fax signal is detected, regardless of the line that the call comes in on. we give a particular number, when requested, to receive faxes but it's not published as a fax number or dedicated to faxes. the reason we give a particular number is in case we have to change it.

this all worked for the last 2+ years. in addition, I was able to use my credit card terminal over the phone line.

sometime after the end of July 2014, something changed and no one can figure out (or admit) what.

we stopped receiving faxes - we don't get that many so it wasn't immediately apparent.

we stopped being able to use our credit card machine over the phone line. we had to change to IP only. (our merchant service told us that the terminals don't ordinarily work over digital lines anyway but ours did until the weekend of 8/23 - that's when we had to change to IP)

in the process of trying to "troubleshoot" the problem, some technician:

1. changed the custom caller ID information - so now people are calling in on the wrong lines when they "reply" by caller-ID

2. changed the hunt group so now only the 3rd line does not forward to the 1st.

3. told me that the only solution is to have a "dedicated" fax line which I didn't have to have until this problem, that I did not create.

since we don't have to use the credit card machine over the phone line and there are "online fax" options available, we were considering dropping the 3rd line anyway. so in the process of trying to force us into a 4th unnecessary line, comcast may have actually done themself out of the 3rd line that we don't really need anymore.

VBSSP-RICH · Answer

Hello mda2185 and welcome,

So you mentioned "my phone system takes incoming calls and routes them to the fax machine if a fax signal is detected, regardless of the line that the call comes in on. " Please provide answers to the following:

1. Are you using a.) dedicated FAX server or is it b.) sophisticated telephone system with programmable routing go between your telephone jack and the FAX machine? If it is a.) have you run loop-back interconnect test to validate that FAX server interconnect is operation? Or if it is b.) have you verified this system's operational integrity with the manufacturer?

2. Have you made sure with a telephone that you can directly make and receive voice calls on all of your Comcast Telephone numbers, specifically your 9797? If no, this definitively needs to be done. If yes, please continue.

3. Have you tried the process of diagnostic elimination by connecting your FAX machine directly to your known working 9797 voice call and seeing if you can receive and transmit FAXes. If you have done this and are able to obtain proper FAX operation directly at 9797, this points to your device that is auto-routing your 9797 FAXes to your FAX machine. I would recommend you check all telephone cable wiring interconnects because sometime this can be an inobvium fix. If you have done this and still cannot establish proper FAX operation, then there is a 9797 line quality problem that Comcast need to address.

Hope this helps you out.

mda2185

Ability to receive faxes changed weekend of 8/23

VBSSP-RICH