[asterisk-biz] Mobile calling in Europe

[Trixter aka Bret McDanel]

On Thu, 2008-10-16 at 18:39 +0200, randulo wrote:

> As an aside, one of the common asterisk tricks here in Europe is
> having asterisk call you back with DISA or a dial tone, or even vmail.
> You receive that call free, and the caller is charged,but since the
> caller is your company, you can still save money because you can use
> SIP provider rates that are substantially lower than the public owned
> telco.

When I was in Ireland I used meteor to call a US based system that used
early media to play an announcement and all that to the caller.  Meteor
filters the caller from saying anything or entering dtmf, and limits
this to 1 minute, other carriers probably do something highly similar.
I am certain it was meteor that was doing the filtering as I controled
the pstn side of things in the US.  My guess is that they didnt want
people using this method as a modern "black box" to in effect make their
number toll free.  I have not tried in the other places I have lived
since or with other carriers that I had even in Ireland so I do not know
how they filter the calls.

This allows you make the call from the GSM handset free, hear some
acknowledgement that the call was received and that you should hang up
now, and all that.  I would not rely on being able to accept dtmf
through this though, which means you are largely limited to CLID only to
identify the caller, and all that.  

I do not know if asterisk supports early media, which versions support
it, or whatever.  I was using alternate software for call processing.
-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
Belfast +44 28 9099 6461        US +1 516 687 5200
http://www.trxtel.com the phone company that pays you!