Upgrade to the UMass Telephone System July 19-20
The UMass telephone system will be undergoing an upgrade on July 19-20. This
upgrade will bring in some new features, and increase the call load capability
of the entire system.
There will be brief interruptions of service for administrative campus phones
(545 and 577) starting 11:00 PM, Friday 7/19, and extending approx. 4 hours.
This will affect phones, TAU's, FAX and voicemail. However, you will not lose
any messages that are on voicemail when the upgrade begins.
Student telephones (546 and 573) will be upgraded starting 11:00 PM, Saturday
7/20.
Emnergency facilities and 911 will NOT be affected.
Below are the major changes and improvements in service:
DIVERSIONS! Now phone calls can be diverted to as many as three different
phones in sequence (i.e. a professor can forward calls to a scretary who can
forward them to a second secretary). Previously, if a second phone diverted to
a third and a 1st phone diverted to the second, calls from the first phone
would
not divert to the third.
911 will be upgraded to E911 specifications and integrated with the regional
E911 system.
In the near future, Caller-ID will become operational for all calls originating
from off campus.
Long distance: You will now need to dial "1" for all long distance calls,
including 800 and 888 toll-free calls, and FAX calls. This is due to the
proliferation of area codes which now often match telephone exchanges.
Manual call diversions: (those set with *2*, *21*, *23#, etc.) These will all
be wiped out during the upgrade and you will need to reset them once the
upgrade
is complete.
All hard wired phone diversions will apply for both busy signals and
"no answer" (after 4 rings). If you wish the diversion only for "no
answer" or only for busy signal, it can be changed manually.
The F keys on model 661 phones (F1-F4) will no longer be able to be
used for speed-dialing numbers. Those keys will now be reserved for
"user defined functions".
Speed-dialing numbers that you've programmed into your phone: Telecom
will try and recover all of those after the upgrade but MAY lose a
few. Therefore, please do up an inventory of your programmed
speed-dialing numbers and check them again afterwards to make sure
they were recovered; otherwise they will need to be reprogrammed in.
I can program them in if you wish or forward you instructions (from
the blue or green sheet).
How to temporarily turn off Diversion to Voice Mail:
If your phone automatically diverts to voicemail after 4 rings or on a busy
signal, you can temporarily turn off that diversion.
To turn off the diversion to voicemail:
Press # 2 1 #
To turn the diversion back on:
Press * 2 1 #