Automatic Circuit Assurance

About this task

This monitoring technique detects a number of calls with short holding times or a single call with a long holding time. Such calls could indicate hacker activity. Long holding times on trunk-to-trunk calls can be a warning sign. The Automatic Circuit Assurance (ACA) feature allows you to set time limit thresholds that define what is considered a short holding time and a long holding time. When a violation occurs, a designated station is visually notified.

When an alarm occurs, determine if the call is still active. If toll fraud is suspected (for example, if a long holding time alarm occurs on a trunk-to-trunk call), you might want to use the busy verification feature (see Busy Verification for more information) to monitor the call in progress.

Procedure

Use change systemparameters features to display the Features-Related System Parameters screen.
Enter y in the Automatic Circuit Assurance (ACA) Enabled field.
Enter local, primary, or remote in the ACA Referral Calls field.
If primary is selected, calls can be received from other switches. Remote applies if the PBX being administered is a DCS node, perhaps unattended, where ACA referral calls go to an extension or console at another DCS node.
Use change trunk group to display the Trunk Group screen.
Enter y in the ACA Assignment field.
Establish short and long holding times.
The defaults are 10 seconds (short holding time) and one hour (long holding time).
To review, use list measurements aca.