Changing dial plan to use a number other than 9 to get an outside line

[klopez138]

We have been asked recently how hard it would be to change our dial plan to use a number other than 9 to get an outside line. There have been several instances where employees at one of our offices have mistakenely dialed 911. Our engineer with all the voice experience is no longer with us so I don't really have an answer to the question for management.

                We currently have 2 sites, each with a 2911 router we use for voice routing and a CUCM. The CUCMs are clustered across an MPLS network and there are SIP trunks at each site that terminate on the 2911s. There are a slew of route patterns, application dial rules, and and application dial rules that I'm having trouble making sense of in the CUCM and 2911. Additionally, there are several dial-peers and translation patterns configured in the 2911s at each site. I should also mention that at our primary site (where we don't have issues with people mistakenly dialing 911) there is a translation pattern that routes 911 calls to a security office that is in our building where we are a tenant. the Branch office (where 911 calls are being mistakenly made) has a few translation patterns that translate 911 to 911 and 9911 to 911. I would appreciate any help with this issue. I can share configs from the CUCM/2911 as needed to help answer questions. Thanks in advance for any help.

[jason-mcgee · Accepted solution]

It is not exceedingly difficult. You need to verify everything in your route patterns, make sure there is an open block, for instance if you want to use 8 as your outside line, make sure there is nothing else going to the 8000 block internally. I would start with your route plan report. Call Routing >>> Route Plan Report >>> Find, then in the upper right use the view in file link and click go. Then it is going to be a matter of just verifying that whatever number you decide to use as your outside line is available, the entire block, making a plan and creating the route patterns that get out with an 8, or 7 or whatever you decide to use and then removing the route patterns that start with a 9. Where people get tripped up is in the little details and then after you implement, that's when the "I can't dial this or that" complaints start. There is definitely more to it than this short post, but that is where I would start. Once you have more specific questions, I am sure you will be able to get more assistance, as long as you keep posting. I have done this a few times and I will monitor this post and help if I can. Good Luck.

[klopez138]

Jason,

            Thanks for the follow up. Funny, you posted the same day a coworker and I spent the day figuring this out. So our plan to implement this is to mimic a few of our current route patterns into translation patterns that begin with 8. For example we have two route patterns that begin with 9, one for local calling 9[2-9]XX[2-9]XXXXXX, one for long distance 91[2-9]XX[2-9]XXXXXX. We were able to create translation patterns in the Partitions and CSSs in use that were identical to those route patterns that just begin with 8 instead of 9 (8.[2-9]XX[2-9]XXXXXX and 8.[2-9]XX[2-9]XXXXXX). We then configured the translation pattern to discard the PreDot digits, and add an 8 to Prefix Digits (Outgoing Calls). We were then able to use 8 to get an outside line.

With this solution, we didn't remove the ability to dial 9 we only added the ability to dial 8 to get out. This was the best way forward as it allows both 9 and 8 to get outside lines. We have only two offices but one is in Virginia and one is in Colorado. From what we've been told, dialing 8 to get out is common in the area of Colorado our office is in and we have folks that bounce between those offices. Using this solution, the Colorado folks can come to Virginia and dial out without having to do things differently and vice versa. Thanks again for the follow up.