[Asterisk-Users] GSM to BRI ISDN Gateway

[Steve Kennedy]

On Thu, Aug 26, 2004 at 11:37:55AM +0300, Nana Yaw wrote:

> hello steve,
> I am interested to know how this is illegal, where is it written?

In the UK there were various companies offering fixed to mobile
gateways. The gateways generally were "black boxes" with PRI's on one
side, and mobile connections on the other (GSM phones using retail
SIMs).

Apart from the obvious issues like CLI not being passed (user terminal
equipment will only use the phone number associated with the SIM) these
were pretty successful and lots of large telco's used them to pass
traffic to the GSM networks.

The situation came about because wholesale fixed to mobile pricing was
so high (on average about 33p/min), while retails SIM deals could be
done which would include various ammounts of traffic for a fixed fee.
The "black-boxes" were clever in that they internally routed traffic to
the various SIMs depending on time of day/etc rules so the inclusive
minutes were always optimised.

The mobile operators didn't like this and complained to Oftel the (at
the time) UK Telecomms regulator, who found FOR the operators saying a
mobile gateway was fixed therefore wasn't mobile and therefore broke the
license that a mobile user operates under.

However it only applied to people offering service to 3rd parties, as an
individual/company could legitimately connect their mobile phone to
their PC/PBX etc.

The situation has changed now, since Ofcom (the new "Super Regulator"
which regulates all aspect of communications including media) have
forced the operators to considerably reduce their fixed to mobile rates.

You can find the ruling on the Ofcom site (www.ofcom.org.uk).


Steve

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