[asterisk-biz] ABE concurrent calls or channels

[Matt Florell]

On 3/10/09, Kevin P. Fleming <kpfleming at digium.com> wrote:
> Matt Florell wrote:
>
>  > "Asterisk Business Edition supports from 10 to 240 simultaneous calls
>  > per system."
>  > (http://www.digium.com/en/products/software/abe.php?tab=benefits)
>  >
>  > Is this really Asterisk "calls" or is this Asterisk "channels"?
>
>
> I thought this was on the website and in our knowledgebase, but maybe
>  it's not. The ABE "call" restriction is based on the number of channels
>  that have a PBX running on them, even if the PBX is idle while the
>  channel is bridged to another channel.
>
>  So, a normal call of two bridged channels is one "call", but three
>  channels in a MeetMe conference is three "calls". Using Local channels
>  compounds this a bit; if the Local channels aren't allowed to disappear
>  once the outbound call is answered (the '/n' flag), then they count as
>  extra calls. This is fairly rare though.
>
>  --
>  Kevin P. Fleming

Thank you very much for the clarification. The knowledge base postings
don't help to clarify the issue though:

http://kb.digium.com/entry/55/
http://kb.digium.com/entry/18/

Speaking from the stanpoint of a potential customer, they aren't going
to scour the knowledge base for what a "call" means in the world of
Asterisk. I have a potential client that was absolutely convinced that
since he saw it on the website as 250 concurrent calls, and since he
talked to a Digium reseller and they said 250 calls, that he could
have a 200-seat inbound call center on a single server with the ABE
250 call limit and there would be no licensing issues with all seats
in use and on calls with customers.

Now I know that under special circumstances you will give up to a
600-channel license for ABE, but that is not really a supported
option.

Thanks,

MATT---