Note

The features and/or parameters listed in this article may not be available from your telephone service provider.

Introduction

The supporter finds here instructions how to handle a user's level 2 telephony problems.

Introduction Support Level 2

The level 2 support is the first instance where the user's telephony problems are handled that a user cannot solve himself. Additionally the level 2 supporter must be able to detect if the user problem is a "single" problem or if there is a large scale problem, that produces the same problem for multiple customers, e.g. data transfer problems in the Internet so that no VoIP call signaling is possible.

The level 2 supporter must be aware of the complexity of a VoIP system and the multitude of telephony solutions on the user side. Further he needs an understanding of:

IP networking
VoIP protocols SIP for signaling, SDP and RTP for speech transmission.

Overview of a VoIP system and the multitude of user telephony solutions:

The level 2 supporter faces problems with the following layers:

Equipment
IP data transfer
Telephony service

And each of this layer can be located into the following raw areas:

Customer/User site
Internet Service Provider ISP
Telephony Provider

This layer and dividing into areas produces a "3x3 Support Matrix":

Within this "3x3 Support Matrix" the supporter can:

advice the customer what to do when the problem is located in the nodes 1-T, 1-D and 1-E
check the customer configurations on the VoIP Switch, node 3-T, and, if he has operator rights, adjust configurations.

For the other cases the level 2 supporter must be able to identify if:

the user must contact his ISP, due to possible Internet access problems
the VoIP System administrator must be involved, due to possible telephony service problems

Hint:

These cases indicate mostly large scale problems within the VoIP system!

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Best Practice for Handling an User Problem

Best Practice

Identify the customer's problem:
- Get the problem description of the customer
- Get the customer data
Show me how ...
Cross check the user input against the VoIP switch configuration and logs.
Via ConfigCenter check the users account configuration:
- Address registration
- TopStop
- RuleSet
- Consult the "Call Data" for the last connection attempts and connections longer than 2min
Show me how ...
Check the big picture:
- If you are sure that the problem is "single" one continue with the next step "Solve the customer problem"
- If you suspect that the customer is not the only one with this problem within a short time range, e.g. 30min, then contact the VoIP switch administrator/operator if there is known issue in the VoIP system that causes this type of problem.
Show me how ...
Solve the customer's problem:
- You have now enough basic information for solving the customer's problem
Show me how ...
If you are not able to solve this problem then contact the provider support. Have ready all collected information and what you have done and found out until now.