[asterisk-biz] Re: GSM Gateway and Asterisk - No callerID

[Steve Kennedy]

On Wed, Mar 15, 2006 at 04:58:55PM +0000, Conrad Wood wrote:

> On Wed, 2006-03-15 at 14:04 +0100, Aldo Bergamini wrote:
> > asterisk-biz-request at lists.digium.com is believed to have said: 

[snip]
> actually my quest for a compatible permanent sim-card discourages me a
> bit.
> After browsing around a bit I found the cheapest deal on cross-network
> minutes from O2 (tariff: online talker 400 for ?45, including 800
> minutes). The deal essentially is 5.625p a minute for upto 800 minutes.
> Now say I use just my landline to call mobiles. I buy calls to mobiles
> for 10p per minute from my provider. Even if I use all 800 minutes I'd
> be saving only ?35 per month.
> To make it worse, we use about 5000 minutes to mobiles each month, but
> the 2000+ minutes plans are more expensive at a per minute price.
> So I could either buy multiple SIMs and multiple (or bigger) gateways,
> but that would take even longer to break even then.
> I am beginning to wonder, whether it is actually viable to run gsm
> gateways in the UK.
> Questions for the list are:
> Did anyone manage to purchase mobile-minutes at less than 5.625p a
> minute? If so, at which volume?
> Am I missing some piece to the puzzle here?

Get a wholesale connection to the networks, though the rates are
probably higher (I think it's more like 7p per min for O2 and Voda).
There probably are resellers doing better deals.

> We currently get a pretty good deal on hosting and bandwidth and I
> wonder whether amyone would be interested in a joint effort to put up a
> multi-sim gsmgateway and asterisk-box up in our hosting center to bridge
> calls from voip and isdn to gsm. Essentially we could negotiate with
> carriers if we buy the volume I guess. Assuming of course the carriers
> don't get all funny about something like that.

That would be ILLEGAL. Ofcom have ruled that running 3rd party gateways
is NOT allowed. As a business, the business can run their own gateway
for their own use only.

As soon as you run a 3rd party gateway the networks can cut you off. You
also have the problem that the CLI of the call will come from the SIM
not from the PBX or whatever 3rd party you're running the gateway from.

Ofcom recently held a consultation whether to allow gateways or not,
currently it's still illegal.


Steve

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