VCFMW 18 was September 9-10, 2023. The information below will be similar for the following years, but check back for updated information for VCFMW 19.
This page contains VCFMW 18 telephone information. See the various sub-pages for specific information:
The telephone directory will include a list of all subscribers and services, as well as general dialplan and numbering information
This page will include information on how to use and access the services offered to subscribers.
See this page for information about services offered and how to order them.
A lot of preparation goes into running VCFMW. The past several years, I have been responsible for running the telephone network. This is a tradition that began back in 2017 or so. The network ran on a cisco ISR for the first couple years, followed by a Meridian 1 Option 61 PBX in 2019. After our virtual year in 2020, I took over the telephone network in 2021 and began running it from a Meridian 1 Option 11C PBX.
After learning my lesson in 2021, I put a lot more advanced effort into preparing for the telephone network in 2022. The biggest changes were taking orders for service and planning cabling before the show. That way I could provision lines and perform the various necessary cross connections in advance.
In 2022, I had approximately 20 customers (including myself) who collectively ordered about 30 lines and two T1 trunks. In 2023, I had approximately 40 customers who collectively ordered about 60 lines (including an ISDN BRI line and a Meridian digital set line), one data T1, and a few analog DID trunks. Next year, I expect the growth to slow down, as I believe that 2022 was the first year I managed to make the phone network work well and 2023 only saw substantial growth as a result of that general success.
Preparation for the show starts long before the day of the show. Up to a couple months prior, I start reaching out by email to anyone who indicated interest in telephone services on their exhibitor signup form. I collect information about what types of lines and trunks they require and whether they need any special features enabled. Once all of this information is collected, which sometimes involves several emails, I can begin collecting and verifying the equipment I'll need to support the orders.
It's important to do the equipment verification step. Above is a repair I made to a cisco 2501 router which I was planning to use for serving a data T1. I was able to track the fault down to a failed NAND gate which was preventing the 68000 CPU from running. I used a jumper wire to tap an identical signal from another gate instead.
I can also start working out the cabling plan. That also helps me estimate how much cable I will need to serve everyone.
With the help of trmg from VoFR.net, I started with provisioning the core network equipment. That means provisioning things like dialplan, trunking, and routing. The core for VCFMW this year consisted of the Meridian 1 Option 11C PBX, a Cisco 3845 ISR, a PC running Asterisk, and a PC running VyOS as a VPN and general network router. Back at home, a Cisco 2821 ISR in conjunction with an Asterisk PC acted as a tandem switch between the 3845 at the show and the rest of the world (C*NET, my POTS line, and SCDP).
Aside from the core equipment, various ancillary equipment also needed configuration and verification. This year, that consisted of several pieces of equipment and functions:
With the core configuration fleshed out for all of that equipment, the final step is provisioning and cross connecting the actual customer lines and trunks. That repetitive process consists of identifying a free line on the PBX, configuring the line, identifying a free pair in the appropriate feeder cable out to the exhibit floor, and performing the cross connect. In an ideal state, this would be completed before VCFMW setup even begins, but usually by this point I'm about a day behind and still have half the cross connects to do at the show.
Thursday night is setup for the show infrastructure itself. There are two important things to accomplish for the telephone network on this day. The first is to begin setting up the equipment that resides at the 'CO'. This involves bringing in the equipment and starting to arrange, assemble, and cable it.
The other important thing is to start laying out cable according to the cable plan that was previously created. This can begin as soon as the cross connect field is in place, since all of the feeder cabling spiders out from there. Exhibitor setup doesn't officially begin until Friday morning, but usually a few exhibitors start to sneak their stuff in. This can be problematic since the power and telephone cabling hasn't been laid down yet. So long as everything stays off the floor, it's OK, but anything on the ground is just another obstacle to work around.
Most of the feeder cabling uses 25 pair cable with breakout taps placed periodically to plug phones and other equipment into individual pairs. In some areas, due to position or distance, 4 pair cable replaces the 25 pair to supply a smaller number of pairs to a few tables and conserve 25 pair cable. Using 4 pair cables was a highly manual process that involved installing keystone jacks on scraps of cable to connect them into the 25 pair breakouts. At the other end, or tapped into various points, there would be additional keystone jacks installed for customers to attach their equipment. Each keystone would get a label identifying the circuit.
Once the cabling and CO setup is completed, the final cross connections can be continued and the leased equipment such as phones and T1 equipment can be distributed and functionality verified.
A substantial part of Friday is then spent hunting down exhibitors and ensuring they have everything neededfor their telephone lines or other services. Some issues with people plugging into the wrong ports or not knowing where to plug their equipment into are resolved during this time as well. In some cases, the cross connections aren't yet completed either and this can cause additional confusion.
As telecom coordinator for VCFMW, I'm always looking for ways to improve the experience of the customers and reduce the amount of setup work involved at the show. The first major step I took in that direction was to increase the amount of preparation that happens before the show. This worked well in 2022 and worked out OK in 2023 as well, but there were still some pain points that I believe can be improved.
In 2022 and 2023, ordering a phone line involved me looking through the list of exhibitors to see which ones had requested telephone services and then emailing them directly to coordinate what services they needed. In 2023, I created an official ordering guide with a list of available services so that I could link to it in advance of the show, but I still had to individually reach out to each exhibitor to determine their telephony needs.
This process was time consuming and, frankly, unreliable. Many exhibitors did not get back to me right away, some never did, and a few even bounced my mail as undeliverable. For this reason, I would like to eliminate this manual process as much as possible and instead incorporate telephone service ordering into the same form used to sign up for a table.
Now, this won't come without it's own issues. For one thing, many exhibitors aren't likely to have their exhibits fully fleshed out when they initially sign up. For that reason, it's likely a number of exhibitors will need to change their orders some time after they initially fill out the signup form. In that case, I suspect that changes will still involve emails with exhibitors, but the responsibility will now be on the individual exhibitors to reach out if they need changes, rather than on me to get their initial orders.
It will take some work to create a comprehensive order form that includes all of the services I want to offer, while still ensuring the simple orders (e.g. a POTS line or two) remain uncomplicated and easy to request.
Every year, I start with the equipment and configurations from the previous year and build on them. Inevitably, I make some changes and I add some things that were missed or didn't get done the previous year.
In 2022, I theoretically had V.90 modems configured, but I never got around to the PPP functionality. I also had no support for Bell 103 and 212A modulations (since you have to pick either Bell or ITU modes for a modern modem) and that prevented an acoustic coupler modem I brought from working. I also added ISDN BRI dialin data support in 2023, as well as data T1 for internet access.
I changed the configuration for the trunking back to my house as well. In 2022, I brought my only Asterisk PC to VCFMW and used it to provide C*NET access over VPN. That proved complicated to configure and didn't work as well as H323 between the show and home ISRs anyway. In 2023, the Asterisk tandem for C*NET stayed at home and Trmg brought a spare Asterisk PC to perform some ancillary functions that would be difficult to do on any other equipment I had (mostly announcements and an ANAC).
The general goal, moving forward, is to get the necessities working on as few pieces of equipment as reasonably possible. This way there's less to configure, less to bring to the show, and less to set up once we get there. Using TCL IVR scripting, the Cisco ISR can perform a lot of the same functions as Asterisk (announcements, ANAC). I had wanted to use that for 2023, but didn't have enough time to fight with it and make it work. I now have the major functions there figured out, so it should be possible to utilize that functionality next year.
Of course, any changes to the overall setup mean more time to get it configured and working prior to the show. It will help if I can keep enough space cleared off to begin the process earlier. This year (2023) I spent a lot of time just cleaning and organizing my house to have the space to start working on the telephone equipment, let alone actually doing it.
The cross connect field for 2021 through 2023 consisted of wirewrap fields. While there is nothing wrong with wirewrap, and it was workable for those years, wirewrap connections are time consuming to make.
Making a connection involves stripping the wire, inserting it into the wrap gun, finding the correct terminal, and wrapping the wire down. The process is repeated for the other wire, and twice more at the other end of the cross connect (after measuring out the length required).
Punchdown blocks, such as 66, 110, or BIX, offer fewer steps and faster connections trading off reliability (punchdown has 2 points of contact for each connection, whereas wire wrap has a couple dozen). The stripping step is eliminated entirely and the step of making the actual connection is streamlined. The terminal is identified, the wire placed in the terminal itself (rather than the tool) and then punched down and cut to length in a single operation.
With those advantages, it is likely that I will use 110 or BIX punchdown blocks for the cross connection field in the future. 66 blocks can work as well, but they offer less density than 110 or BIX.
Due to constraints on how large of an object I can move in my car, equipment had to be brought disassembled and then racked or tabled and re-cabled at the show. If possible, it would save some time to have the rack mounted equipment transported in the rack, but that depends on having the necessary space available in a larger vehicle to either lay down the rack or stand it up and secure it.
Due to limits on the amount of available 25 pair cable and taps, a mixture of 25 pair, 4 pair, and single pair patch cables were used in 2023 to run services to all of the tables that needed it. This general arrangement not only involved some labor intensive processes (terminating and connecting 4 pair cable at the show) but it also wasn't very clear to exhibitors where to plug their lines in.
In some cases, where a 4 pair cable was under the table with labeled jacks on it, exhibitors were able to figure out where to plug in their equipment without issues.
In other cases, particularly the 25 pair taps, there was no way for an exhibitor to know which port was assigned to them. Sometimes this additionally resulted in equipment being plugged into any port that had dialtone, whether it was the right one or not.
The plan for the future is to continue using 25 pair cable and taps for the higher pair count feeders, and then 4 pair cable for drop lines. The 4 pair drops will use 8P8C modular plugs on each end in conjunction with a custom designed 8P8C breakout PCBA. The 4 pair cable will be tied into the 25 pair cable with short 6P2C patch cables between the 25 pair breakout and the 8P8C breakout.
One 8P8C breakout will be provided for each exhibit which will have the correct lines for that table and only the correct lines for that table. The ports will be labeled clearly to ensure the exhibitors can mostly figure out wiring on their own.
Exhibitors will either provide their own patch cables to use with their table's breakout board, or they will be able to borrow marked patch cables provided by the show. The breakout boards will function as a sort of demarcation point.
In 2023, I had Trmg and myself to rely on for setting up the phone cabling and equipment (there's always people helping day-of, but it'd be best to know in advance who they are and what they'll be doing). We managed to do it, but 2024 promises a move to a larger venue.
There may be some growth in line count, but I'm looking at possible growth in overall amount of cable as well as new complications in setting up the cabling.
As a result of the new venue, it's likely I'll need more help during the initial setup period to get the cable plant laid out. It will likely be necessary to recruit some quality volunteers to assist with this process, which will involve laying out feeder cables, possibly setting up 'telephone poles', hanging cable for aisle crossings, and setting up the 4 pair drop cables and breakouts.