[Asterisk-Users] Prices of g729 codec

[Andrew Kohlsmith]

On Monday 05 June 2006 11:03, trixter aka Bret McDanel wrote:
> > Again, 10k channels you'll have a half dozen MaxTNT boxes terminating
> > DS3s. Your fixed costs will already be significantly higher and that
> > little $10 license fee is included in that.
>
> Its not $10, which also goes along with something else I mentioned
> elsewhere.  Digium charges $10 but the max cost for a g729 license is
> about $1.25.  It goes down to about $0.10/license in quantity.  As such
> it doesnt add a whole lot to the cost of the device once the initial
> code is in place (as that development does have cost since the license
> fee doesnt cover any implementation, only the right to sell that
> implementation).

Stop the presses: quantity purchases get price breaks!  High enough quantities 
let you deal with the "manufacturer" directly!

This is news how?

I can buy a PIC16F877 for $13.23 in onesie-twosie quantities.  If I'm willing 
to buy them in 100 quantities I can get 'em for $7.32 apiece.  That's damn 
near 50% less.  If I commit to buying an entire reel (1200) of them, my price 
is $5.61.

Now let's stop fucking around and go directly to Microchip.  I want a mask-ROM 
PIC and commit to a minimum order of 1M pieces.  What do you think my price 
is?  I'm waiting for the email from their quoting department (and likely will 
get a "we don't offer a masked ROM version of the 16F877", but I also asked 
for a masked ROM version of the PIC16C77, which I know they do make) but I'm 
willing to bet it'll be around $2 apiece.

What's my point?  If you're willing to deal in real volumes, the $10/transcode 
license fee doesn't apply.  You can either go directly to AudioCodes and 
negotiate a better fee ($1.25 is the number you're stating) or you have 
already paid the fee in fixed costs of the hardware you've got in order to be 
able to terminate that kind of call volume.

(and yes, you're right, the g.729 license cost on a MaxTNT isn't $10/port, 
that was a brainfart on my part.)

> And again to clarify, since this was aparently lost somewhere, I was
> responding to the mentality that everyone is a home user and its only
> $10 for a license and that is all anyone ever needs to pay.  You have
> proven me right, thanks again for that.  When you get out of the home
> user mindset the cost goes up dramatically and the argument that I
> responded to that the cost isnt that high at $10/license was invalid,
> even though you seem to be saying that it is that same cost, which
> anyone who really knows anything about the licensing knows that isnt
> true.

... So we're arguing the same point?

> testing the software for them that they sell commercially.  I used a
> specific example designed specifically to show that the $10/lciense fee
> could actually be a considerable sum instead of only $10 which is what I
> replied to.  I am now begining to think that you didnt follow the thread
> or even read what I replied to.  Out of curiosity do you read slashdot?

Your example was invalid, because no sane person running a business with that 
many concurrent calls will be transcoding them on PCs; they'll be terminating 
those calls directly to highly available, application-specific hardware whose 
per-port cost is significantly lower than anything you can hit on PC hardware 
at this time, while meeting better reliability and higher density levels than 
you can achieve on a PC platform at this point in time.  They'll have a 
number of g729 licenses on PCs for some small fraction of their port count 
for doing transcoding for specific purposes (call recording, etc.), but even 
at $10/license it's going to be a small cost of their overall fixed business 
costs.

I read Slashdot occasionally, yes.  Perhaps I've become infected.

-A.