ERA HAS ENDED

Nortel , World recognizes Nortel as leader in Telephony. Alexander Graham Bell invented telephone in 1874. Patented its rights to National Bell Company of Canada and Bell company started its first manufacturing unit in 1882. 1886 they manufactured its first switchboard. 1895 they incorporated NORTHERN ELECTRIC & Mfg COMPANY. 1937 Northern Electric Company developed telephone the predecessor of today's Corporate telephone. 1976 Northern Electric changes its name to NORTHERN TELECOM. First DMS 100 was (Digital Switch that supports upto 100000 Lines) launched in 1979. In 1998 Northern Telecom officialy changes its name to NORTEL. Finally its Legendary "Meridian" switch was launched what we call it as CS1000 these days.
Now Avaya has aquired Nortel and 18 Dec 2009 was the day...

I feel really proud to work on Nortel Meridian Switch which was one of complex product in all aspects like Administration , Programming , Maintenance. Even techs having experience of 5-6 yrs also say that if i would have worked on Nortel M1 in early days of career i would have changed my line :) .

In telecommunications industry there is a say like if anyone has worked on Nortel he can work on any of the product of any company. Really it was great learning experience woroking on M1. The M1 i loved most was 81c , really very complex , high scalability and supports upto around 10000 lines. I will really miss those INI's & swapping of CPs , the most funny part is when we use to disable and enable IPE all the cards use to get enabled by sounding click click click click. At the time of first installation , i liked it very much and i use to do it many times purposefuly :) .

Prior to Joining at 3d networks i was totaly unware of the word Nortel. I saw 81c first time at IBM Daksh project and my manager was installing it. At the time of installation i just use to stand very quite asking no questions. I was complete unaware what was going on. But in a short time span i learned how to program the switch. Then it was so interesting that every day i use to try one new feature programming at TCS. Even when i was in TCS if any issue came i very often INIed the switch cause those people never came to know what was happening :). My manager use to frighten me that if switch goes down no one can bring it back up and i use to believe him cause i was knowing very little about M1. But gradually i learnt how to bring it up , programe it etc.

I did many projects which mainly involved M1 as a core product. Gradually a bond between me and M1 established. It was so close that prior to starting installation i use to bow against M1 and use to think "please just get install in a good manner". We use to say if you will try to play with M1 , it will play with you and this really true in most of the cases . Even other techs also would agree with me on this. We use to install M1s in many corporate offices and the fun was working continuesly day & night without going home untill installation gets completed. I did most of the installations like this only. It was so interesting to install M1 that you will not want to stop untill it gets completely installed and programmed.

Then at last M1 got manufacture discontinued and came up CS1000 , the most awaited product for VOIP telephony.

I think M1 & CS1000 is the only switch in the world which dont alow you to press backspace while programming but a single star (*) would get you going. Even the Help available was so short that no one would be able to figure out what command he has to write. But that was the real fun while programming and installing M1. Refering documents also was so complex that if first time viewer will see those documents he not be able to figure out anything.

A project came up in Pune which involved CS1000E Rls 5. I was sent for the installation and i was not knowing anything about Rls 5. There were many realses of software starting from 21,22,23,25, 3 then 4 & 4.5. But i think the most stable was realese 25.40B & 3.

At the time of installing Rls 5 i learnt how it works ,what are its features etc. When client use to ask me any questions i was not having any of its answeres and i always use to say i will let you know in short time. Then i use to search in docs , use to ask my seniors and ansewerd him. But this searching the docs and asking my seniors made me refering docs while installing. And then i started refereing documentations finally :). I did that installation and it was really 2nd or 3rd installtion from 3d networks for Rls 5 in India. So after that everyone started calling me and taking help from me for Rls 5. At the time of installation of Rls 5 at the first time i was not knowing why DSPs are there and i just placed those DBs on card but not programmed them. I was not knowing how to program them and register them. Then i came to know somehow and i programmed them but registering DSP was the new concept which i came acros and so i asked Nortel how to do it. I guess many concepts changed from the realese of Rls 5 software and architecture also was changed completely. An evolution.

I worked on so many installations and everytime there use to be different requirement from client for features. Thus i figured out many Features and workaround for those features. The most enjoyable moments was programming those features and trying them out. Overall feature programming was the most loved part in complete programing stage.

It was really a great pleasure working on M1 switches. It was fun hearing that disabling enabling sound of cards. Those blinking lights. I will really miss those things. Really enjoyed working on Nortel Meridian 1 system. Now that Avaya has aquired Nortel , dont know what will happen to this product , but i really hope that they continue manufacturing this product.