[asterisk-biz] Unlimited DID

[Joe Antkowiak]

Have to agree here...  There are a few key concepts that I think you're missing. 
  They're often overlooked...but they hurt.  Once you say "unlimited" (defined 
otherwise or not), there are many other limits of the technology and service 
you'll have to be fully aware of and plan for.

Ex:  your server was sleeping at 2500 channels -- but what happens when you have 
500 channels connecting/terminating every second or two?  and does that kind of 
usage fit into your definition of unlimited?

Just be careful =)


Trixter aka Bret McDanel wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-08-14 at 11:05 -0700, Jai Rangi wrote:
>> Trixter,
>> Thank you for your comments, 
>> We are not dealing with PSTN on our side, we are true VoIP. 
> 
> Then what are the DIDs?  If they are PSTN callable then there is a pstn
> link somewhere, and that link will have a finite amount of channels it
> can support and generally it will require the telco to upgrade, and they
> may not want to for whatever reason - or may not want to in a timely
> fashion.  This can cause them to limit you in aggregate, which
> ultimately that limit will be passed to your customers, although no
> single customer may notice if its sufficiently high.
> 
> 
>> Re: Bandwidth, we have upto 100mb. Yes we WILL NOT be doing any media
>> on our network which is real bandwidth killer.  Re: cpu and and other
>> limits we have built our system on horizontal scalable architecture,
>> fully redundant and load balanced system, that includes firewall, SIP
>> router, Asterisk servers, Database servers etc. 
>>
> 
> Ok, 100Mbps should be enough for just SIP, but then again under my
> example the provider would have to have enough *extra* capacity for the
> 1Gbps of media (assuming "worst case" G.711) that would be generated.
> Keep in mind that you are adding to their current load by doing this,
> and if they dont expand, or dont expand quickly enough, odds are they
> are going to have to limit the channels for that reason.  
> 
> Additionally you are taking 1/3 of a media gateway P (you can only do
> about 32k media streams with RTP per IP since it requires "every other"
> port, with RTCP one off, port numbers are a 16 bit integer blah blah
> blah).  I do not know if they have that much spare RTP capacity either,
> so again limits can come from that.  
> 
> 
>> During our crash test, my server was sleeping until 2500 channels. So
>> I am not really worried upto 5000 channels and from there I can easily
>> expand my capacity. Our target is to do the expansion as soon as we
>> reach the 40-50% utilization of the resources. For companies who has
>> more that 200 channels on each DID I think it will be worth for them
>> to deal directly with Lavel3, XO, Quest or Verizon directly. 
>>
> 
> Except that they can get the service from you for $8-11 and it would not
> be so cheap from those companies directly.  As a result if you really do
> offer no limits, no redefining words in your user agreements, and all
> that, this would provide them with a much cheaper alternative.  Sure it
> gets you customers, but it can be problematic in the end.
> 
> 
>> Yes, I agree that every unlimited has a limit in terms of capacity and
>> resources and we are not exception. But I am positive that we can be
>> good resource for small to mid size businesses. 
> 
> That may be, just be warned that the limits that can be placed may not
> come from you, but rather your carriers, or somewhere else in between
> you and the pstn.  Those are limits you really cant control easily, but
> they still affect your ability to market as unlimited.
>