[Asterisk-biz] Need some advice..

[snacktime]

On 11/19/05, trixter aka Bret McDanel <trixter at 0xdecafbad.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 2005-11-19 at 19:13 -0800, snacktime wrote:
> > If we can't do this then we will probably just have a password
> > protected voice menu they can call into via an 800 number.  That has
> > some advantages anyways, but I personally think it would look a lot
> > better if their voip phone acted like it was a local extension to our
> > own asterisk server.
> >
> > Any thoughts on how we might accomplish this?  The simpler the better.
>
> You could have everyone register with your asterisk box, then directly
> connect the media streams (reinvite=yes or notransfer=no sip or iax
> respectively) to the actual ITSP.  That saves you the bandwidth, reduces
> customer latency (usually), and overall gives you what you want.
>
> If asterisk is the endpoint of the call (ie they are accessing a menu
> local to your system) then the media stream obviously would terminate
> with your box and not be redirected.
>
> If howevr they call the PSTN it would go direct where it has to go, your
> partner ITSP.  To reduce your costs you can hook into a dundi cloud
> and/or try enum.org to directly terminate voip->voip where possible.
>
> Does this setup do exactly what you want it to do?  Or did I miss
> anything?

Well I want the benefits of having a client registering their device
to us, but without having to support it.  We can't be handing out
ata's, providing support for clients registering to our asterisk box,
etc..   And I don't really care about the billing records for our
clients coming into our system, however it happens.  Our money will
come from their customers calling into our system, and from monthly
fees we charge our clients for the service.

The more I think about it the more I like just having an 800 number
our clients can call from any phone into our system.  Then once we
have a few hundred using the service we might look at other options. 
They won't be spending much time in the voice menu anyways since most
of the management functions can be done via a web interface.  Some
voicemail checking, and using the voice menu to log into and out of
queues if they don't have access to a web browser.

Chris