[Asterisk-biz] Need Quote

Tue Sep 20 22:50:01 MST 2005

On Tue, 2005-09-20 at 22:24 -0700, Zakary wrote:
>  I am starting a new business in the VoIP. I need to get some quote on
>  setting up pre-paid calling cards as well as PC-to-Phone and Phone-to-Phone
>  services.
> 
>  Please send your quotes and specific cost per line item for:
>      1. HW needs
how many callers do you plan on allowing at the same time?  That will
adjust your needs.  In addition are you going to be 100% voip or have
pstn interconnect directly?  If 100% voip you will need 2x the bandwidth
as there will be both a call in and out for each caller for the vast
majority of the call duration (call setup only inbound until they dial
the number they want to talk to).

Make sure that your networking equipment can truely handle that as well,
when you start talking about large volume traffic I have seen switches
for example that have 16-20 100Mbps ports on them but the backplane
speed of the router is low enough that you cant actually get that all at
the same time, especially with full duplex.  

What about failover?  In essence you double up on the systems os that if
one goes down you arent out of business.  While in many cases its not a
true doubling, but you get the idea.

>      2. SW needs
technically from what you said asterisk and the astcc agi can do this.
astcc is a program that does prepaid calling card stuff with asterisk.
However you may (depending on volume and other factors) decide that a
front end like SER would be good and use asterisk for your application
server with SER effectively doing load balancing.  All of the software I
mentioned is free to get, however if you dont know enough to configure
it all, there is the install cost from someone else involved.

By know enough I also mean tuning the network not just the systems for
max performance.  VoIP has some different network properties than a
network used for web and email only.  As such you will want to look at
how the network is used and adjust packet size, routing, possibly vlans,
etc ...  I dont know enough about the scope of your project right now to
make any intelligent comment other than 'you may or may not need to
consider this'.

>      3. Setup
what is going to be setup?  It is far cheaper to have someone set up 1
system/circuit than 1000.  Scope of the project is critical for this
component.

What all gets setup?  Built from the ground up or using some more or
less turnkey solution ie buying asterisk boxes/using asterisk at home and a
service provider like global crossing which will terminate everything
voip for ya?  does the network already exist or does that need to be
installed and configured as well?  Quite vague, mind sharing some
details?

>      4. providing termination A-Z to USA, Euorpe, Canada, and parts of the
>  third world
That is a sticky solution.  You may find that a one stop shop like
global crossing (note I know I have said them before but I am not
endorsing them, they are just the largest I can think of that everyone
else should have heard about as well) that can do all the inbound and
outbound routing that you require, or you may find that its cheaper to
go with multiple vendors who have lower rates to specific targets then
use least cost routing to terminate the calls.  Off the top of my head I
am gonna say that going with a bigger company that does everything would
be better becuase your total volume increases and you can realize some
savings there, however this may not always be the case.

>      5. Billing solution
how do you intend to bill?  Credit card?  Paypal?  egold?  Using a
payment system where people goto the local grocery and give them cash
(not western union their name escapes me now, but this was used in south
america by aol due to lower numbers of credit cards possessed by the
people, and there is a system in america that does exactly the same
thing).

Too many questions without enough information this cant reasonably be
answered.

>      6. Hosting cost per plan
What *exactly* will you be hosting?  web server and voip proxy?  If that
is the case how much floor space do you need?  Will a half rack do or do
you need a whole condo at somewhere like exodus?  How much bandwidth
will you need?  These all factor into the costs of hosting.  Then again
other factors that you may not think about that add to this cost.  How
physically secure is the building where you will host at?  How well
protected is it from natural disaster (flood, earthquake, etc)?  How
well connected is the building?  Are you going to consume the vast
majority of the bandwidth available and basically not be able to expand
without great headache?  Does the hosting company have backup generators
and air conditioning units?  All of these things add to the cost but
should something happen can be the difference between continuing to
operate and going out of business.  Basically its an insurance policy
that you would be paying for, you hope you never need it but if you do
you will be glad you do have it.

>      7. Whatever else I left off
> 
check for regulatory issues as well, some jurisdictions like to regulate
prepaid calling cards.  Some jurisdictions regulate all stored value
programs whether its telephony, banking (ie paypal) or other.  So
getting a clear answer from the first person you speak to may be
difficult unless they had experience specifically with telephony related
topics.

I guess the summation is that you didnt provide enough information,
should you wish to provide that I am sure that you will get a better
response, if not from me then from someone else on the list.  At least
this gives you something to think about, and most of this stuff should
have been in your business plan.  If you dont have a business plan how
do you know if the business as a whole is doing what it should when it
should (ie goals to achieve).  Maybe I am just a little too academic but
I think its better to plan ahead of time than to sit around after the
fact and wonder.

-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
UK +44 870 340 4605   Germany +49 801 777 555 3402
US +1 360 207 0479 or +1 516 687 5200
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