Specifications

Statistics and System Resource Management
180 025-9034AA
We like to use a “bucket” analogy: picture a bucket with a spigot at the bottom, and a
bunch of faucets pouring into it. Each faucet represents a phone line; the spigot (or each
spigot if you have multiple Station cards each with its own radio channel) represents the
radio channel. With a few faucets turned on, or a lot of faucets but none flowing too
swiftly, the bucket does not fill up, though it might have a little water in it (a small delay).
But keep increasing the volume of each faucet, or turning on more of them, and the bucket
will slowly start filling up, even though water is pouring through the spigot(s) as fast as it
can go. Sooner or later, it is going to be very full, or even overflow. This represents a big
delay for pages going over the air (that your customers will probably not stand for).
The system can queue up a very large number of pages. There is no practical limit to the
number. The amount of air time you have available, the quantity of pagers, and the amount
of paging on each channel are the main factors. These are matters outside the scope of the
Series 2000 product.
Voice Channels (Time Spent Waiting for a Voice Channel)
Symptoms of insufficient voice channels are extra rings before a call is answered,
especially during busy times of the day.
Voice channels are a system hardware/software resource. The hardware is on the Voice
card in your system. Old PCM voice cards are fixed at six voice channels; ADPCM voice
cards are available in 4, 8, 12, or 16 voice channel configurations.
Each voice channel handles playback or recording of voice to or from the hard disk in the
paging terminal. Multiple voice channels mean multiple simultaneous use of voice. For
example, on a large system, 10 callers might be separately listening to 5 different voice
prompts and recording 5 different voice paging messages, all at the same time.
This statistic helps you see if any callers received extra rings before their call was
processed. Ideally, you will see an empty graph, or one with an occasional maximum
delay of a second or two. If you start seeing averages or larger peaks, you may want to add
more voice channels.
Voice channels are allocated as follows: each Station card gets a voice channel allocated to
it exclusively. The remaining voice channels, after all Station cards are satisfied, become a
“pool” of available voice channels for the trunks. When a trunk card is processing a call
that needs voice (voice prompts are being played or a voice page or prompt is being
recorded), it “grabs” a voice channel from the pool. When the trunk is done with the voice
channel, it releases it back into the pool.
If there is no voice channel available and the trunk needs one, it waits until one is
available. While it waits, it plays ringing to the phone line. These are the extra rings the
caller hears.
If a Station card uses no voice at all (it is used strictly for display paging), it can be
configured so it does not use a voice channel (Zetron can set this up for you). Similarly, if
a trunk line is used only for entering display pages or for dial-up alphanumeric paging, and
never plays or records voice prompts, custom prompts, voice pages, or mailbox messages,