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BT
Pathway Tips
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| Main Unit CCU - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom The BT Pathway and BT Inspiration telephone systems share identical looking hardware, but the BT Pathway is on an upgraded firmware version. The system motherboard is complete with 6 extension ports (0+6) but would normally be delivered at a starting size of 2+6 (for analogue lines or ISDN2e channels). The system includes its own MDF with Krone IDC & RJ45 connections for wiring extensions cables & lines onto the phone system. Expansion cards are connected onto the motherboard when extra growth is required. Expansion card have their Krone IDC connectors & RJ45 connectors which present onto the side of the MDF. |
| trade tips for the BT pathway and BT Inspiration |
| Expansion beyond 6 extensions - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom BT Pathway & BT Inspiration expansion cards are equipped with 6 extensions, a total of 2 can be connected to the motherboard (giving the total of 18 extensions). The 2 expansion boards also contain the slots for Lines 5-8 on the phone system, expansion beyond 4 lines is not possible without also having an extension expansion board. |
| trade tips for the BT pathway and BT |
| Voicemail card - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom The Voicemail cards for the BT Pathway & BT Inspiration telephone systems are 1-port only with 80 minutes of storage time and can provide a voice mailbox for every user + a central system answering mailbox. They can also be used to provide a customised courtesy/queuing message or Voice DISA (basic attendant facilities). Voicemail is very easy to use with a BT Pathway or BT Inspiration featurephone as the voicemail menu if provided on-screen in a menu-driven display so minimum training is required. Please Note: No indication is given to standard telephones when a message is waiting. Return to Main Tips Menu |
| trade tips for the BT pathway and BT |
| ISDN - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom Both the BT Inspiration and the BT Pathway support the connection of up to 8 ISDN2e channels (4 lines) and can also provide an ISDN S-bus connection. Each ISDN card support 1 x ISDN2e line (2 channels), one ISDN clocking card per system is also required. There is full support for PTP or PMP with respective DDI or MSN facilities, one major limitation is that neither phone system has the ability to assign a name to a DDI so if a user receives calls for more than one they have no way to distinguish between them... However subject to system configuration - we have found a way round this that gives the user the ability to see which DDI number has been called but it is not suitable for all system configurations. |
| trade tips for the BT pathway and BT |
| Lines - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom The BT Pathway and the BT Inspiration support any combination of analogue or ISDN2e lines and despite the claims by BT and some other comms companies the BT Inspiration supports up to 8 as does the BT Pathway. Both systems have very good support for trunk to trunk transfer and diversion facilities on analogue lines as well (subject to BT line configuration). Up to 4 lines can be used with the basic system CCU motherboard, but each set of two lines after this also require an extension expansion card to be connected which has caught out many an unwitting engineer. |
| trade tips for the BT pathway and BT |
| System Featurephones - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom The first point we need to mention here is that although they look similar the featurephones for the BT Pathway and BT Inspiration have different firmware and hence cannot be used on each other. The same rule applies for the many white BT featureline telephone that look identical - they have a different firmware and are not compatible with the BT Pathway or BT Inspiration. However there are featurephones that have come into the UK market as imported foreign variants of both the BT Pathway & BT Inspiration, we have listed some below: Inter-Tel Encore featurephone (black) - can be used on the BT Pathway Eircom Netlink Featurephone (white) - can be used on the BT Inspiration. The BT Pathway had 2 variants of the system featurephone - a fully handsfree model and a model known as the 'Monitor' with loudspeaker only, the BT Inspiration had only a handsfree model. All featurephones are equipped with 8 programmable keys/lamps, a large menu-driven display and a message waiting/call indicator lamp. Though the phones do not have a headset port, they are headset compatible, headset mode can be set in phone programming by the user. |
| trade tips for the BT pathway and BT |
| Extension Ports - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom All extension ports on the BT Pathway and BT Inspiration systems are fully hybrid and hence support connection of standard telephones (SLTs) or System Featurephones. Return to Main Tips Menu |
| Call Logging (SMDR) - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom Both the BT Inspiration and the BT Pathway support call logging but the SMDR Module is needed to connect between a PC/Printer serial port and the system V24 (RJ22 port). There are a number of 3rd party software logging packages compatible with the output. Please note there is no buffer on either phone system so call records will be lost if the phone system loses connection to the PC/Printer. |
| trade tips for the BT pathway and BT inspiration |
| Camino Management Software - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom The Camino software for the BT Pathway allows the phone system to be configured from a PC (the SMDR module is also required for connection). Diagnostic utilities can be run and access to more advanced setup is possible than is available from telephone programming. A BT Pathway phone system configuration can also be backed up and/or restored from Camino. |
| trade tips for the BT pathway and BT inspiration |
| Doorphone Connection - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom Doorphone connectivity & a door release relay are built-in as standard on both the BT Pathway and BT Inspiration telephone systems. The doorphone should be connected into Extension 23 which can be configured as Doorphone to allow for ringing options and door answer & lock release prompts when called. The BT Netlink 30 Door intercom is recommended but any other Door Intercom that operates on an analogue 2-wire extension will normally suffice. |
| trade tips for the BT pathway and BT inspiration |
| Automated Attendant - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom This was a feature that was commonly sold to clients by sales but neither the BT Inspiration nor the BT Pathway telephone systems support it properly. 1. The voice module only has 1-port so can only answer 1 call at a time, this goes down to zero if a message is being left in a mailbox. 2. There is no single digit routing (such as press 1 for sales, 2 for accounts etc), the voice attendant greeting has to ask the caller to dial an extension number (such as dial 22 or dial 23). |
| trade tips for the BT pathway and BT inspiration |
| Voice over IP - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom Neither the BT Inspiration nor the BT Pathway have any integrated Voice over IP facilities, but it is possible through the use of an external IP Gateway to add SIP trunks and/or SIP extensions to the telephone systems. Both systems also have a routing table that can be used to control which numbers are routed via VoIP trunks. |
| trade tips for the BT pathway and BT inspiration |
| BT Inspiration CTI (Call Manager) - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom The BT Inspiration telephone system had an optional application known as Call Manager which in affect was basic Computer Telephony Integration (CTI). The software (which only runs on MS Windows 95 with a recommended hardware minimum of Pentium 75) allows the user to control their BT Inspiration featurephone from a PC, a special V24 Call Manager TAPI module directly connects each individual featurephone to a PC Serial port, the featurephone also requires a PSU (AC/DC Transformer with output voltage of 5 Volts). Each Call Manager pack was delivered with the necessary disks and cables/adapters to facilitate connection. Call Manager was rarely sold and it is rare for a copies to be available now, when they do they are invariably missing a disk or necessary cable or adapter. |
| trade tips for the BT pathway and BT inspiration |
| Remote Management - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom Both the BT Pathway & the BT Inspiration could be remote managed but the software for the Inspiration was not available outside BT. The firmware patch & management software for the BT Pathway is available. Remote management however was not simple as a BT Pathway phone system was required to be installed at the maintainers office running a patched version of the system firmware, known as a 'captive' system, remote management control was instigated from the captive system to the remote site. |
| Adding a GSM Mobile Gateway - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom A GSM Mobile Gateway (Premicell) can be added to both the BT Pathway and BT Inspiration telephone systems. The routing tables on either system allow mobile calls (i.e. 07) to be automatically routed to the trunk port connected to the Gateway on a preferred or exclusive basis. |
| trade tips for the BT pathway and BT inspiration |
| Least Cost Routing - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom Both the BT Pathway and BT Inspiration telephone systems can provide Least Cost ROuting (LCR) to automatically route calls to a chosen carrier or multiple carriers. One limitation is that due to a digits limitation local calls cannot normally be routed for many area codes if the carrier requires the phone system to insert the STD area code as well as the Carrier access code. The LCR routing (known as Alternate Routing) tables can also be used to force calls to a priority outgoing line or to automatically insert a 9 for external calls when the trunk lines connected are enabled for the BT Featureline service. |
| trade tips for the BT pathway and BT inspiration |
| Lines not releasing - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom A common problem we have found on sites installed by inexperienced engineers which has on many occasions lead to a customer's negative perception of the BT Pathway & BT Inspiration telephone systems - luckily we can fix this in a few minutes. Both systems support trunk to trunk diversion and transfer facilities on analogue lines so the system's have different configuration settings for the DCT (Disconnect Clear Time), this this is set incorrectly lines will not release or will take some time. |
| trade tips for the BT pathway and BT inspiration |
| Caller Display Service - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom Both the BT Pathway and BT Inspiration telephone systems as standard support Caller Display (Caller ID) service on analogue and ISDN lines, the service is only supported to system featurephones not SLTs (standard telephones). Names can be assigned to regular callers and a VIP routing option allows different incoming ringing settings if required to named callers (A-number routing). |
| trade tips for the BT pathway and BT inspiration |
| Hunt Groups - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom Its a little known fact that the BT Pathway & BT Inspiration telephone systems can actually support hunt groups (as well as ring-all groups). Up to 4 hunt groups can be configured, an extension can only be a member of a single hunt-group, any line or ISDN access can be assigned to ring a hunt group (but not DDI numbers). Calls are presented cyclically to extensions and a hunt group diversion can be invoked. Hunting will reroute to the next extension if an extension is busy, call will alert a different extension in cyclical order each time a call rings the hunt group. Extension DND and diversion settings are ignored if they are a member of a hunt group (extensions cannot log-out). |
| trade tips for the BT pathway and BT inspiration |
| Lost Passwords - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom Programming passwords get forgotten or mislaid sometimes but all is not lost: The BT Pathway system password can be recovered by using the engineer configuration software. The BT Inspiration system can be factory defaulted even without the programming password. |
| trade tips for the BT pathway and BT inspiration |
| System Recovery - BT Pathway & BT Inspiration Trade Tips from ToneTel Telecom ToneTel Telecom engineers have recovered many a BT Pathway and BT Inspiration phone system when all seemed lost including: Extn 20 (Programming Extension) set to Paging, locking out access to the phone system, we can factory default a BT Inspiration phone system to recover this, the BT Pathway telephone system has an upgraded firmware to prevent this problem. System boot-up (Start-up) problems, normally accompanied by an error message on featurephone displays, though we may need to replace some circuits - the main phone system unit is often recoverable from this. |