[asterisk-biz] Fancy Calling Card Timers!

[Douglas Garstang]

This seems like a good place to post this, as I'm sure there's lots of calling card operators here.

I have someone who wants to build a calling card with some extra challenges. 

When a users time on a call is almost up, they want to allow the user to recharge their account while still on the call. I can of course call the Dial() application and pass it call limit information, but when the call limit is reached, Dial() is just going to hang up.

Because a call will contain both billable and non billable minutes, they need to keep track of these timers separately. When a user is recharging their minutes, they aren't getting billed. After they have finished recharging, and drop back to the original call (remember, it was not disconnected, and the other person should have been 'on hold' during the recharge), then they go back to being billed again.

Question... how the HECK can I do this with Asterisk?

The only thing I can come up with is to have an external application send a SIP reinvite when the callers time is almost up and redirect their media to another location so that the account can be recharged. A problem with this is that even if you do this, the Dial() application is still going to end the call when the call limit is reached. I think you would have to track the call time somewhere else and not pass limit information to Dial() at all. The other application tracking the call time would send a SIP reinvite when the call time was up.

Anyone done this?

Doug.


      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-biz/attachments/20080712/98b3187d/attachment.htm