Clearing is the sequence of signaling events that disconnects an active telephone call. It involves releasing the trunk lines, freeing up switch ports, and returning the circuits to an idle state so they can accept new calls. In digital networks, this requires specific release messages to propagate through all intermediate switches to ensure no resources are left hanging.
Heard on the job
The switch is showing a high number of incomplete calls because the remote end isn't sending the clearing signal.
Insider tip
A failure in the clearing process results in a hung trunk, which ties up network capacity until an administrator manually resets the port.
Also heard as
- call clearing
- teardown