[Asterisk-biz] Billing software

[alex at pilosoft.com]

On Tue, 22 Nov 2005, Operations Jabeens wrote:

> Let me add my two cents into this discussion.
>  Its a pity that virtually no commercial or open source software (native
> to Asterisks) is available to run a professional level VOIP based
> services such as calling card or whole sale VOIP termination services.
> You will find many pieces here and there , also supposedly free ( you
> pay to developer to work as consultant instead) in many flavor of open
> source components, but not an integrated holistic solution.
>
>  Hope this scenario will change soon. Ending monopolistic hefty pricing
> regime of incumbent legacy software such as Sysmaster or MERA or Eyebill
> should foster innovation from small startup telcos delivering value
> added services to their niches.
Number of factors: 

a) Asterisk is not a good platform to do calling card/wholesale. In fact,
it scales horribly. And I don't mean scaling from one customer to a 4
PRIs, I am talking scaling in terms of DS3s worth of traffic and hundreds
of call attempts per second. Asterisk is an excellent PBX platform, but it
is an overkill for services that have simple media pass-through.

b) It isn't rocket science to build your own platform. And, it will be
probably *better* for your business than any prepackaged solution. Also, 
it will probably be not all that helpful to anyone else.

c) Presumably, you are in wholesale business to make money. Now, if you
don't understand enough how to use existing pieces to make a product, and
you don't want to pay someone to do it for you, maybe, just maybe, you
shouldn't *be* in this business?

>  Can someone or a group take a lead here to end this status-quo?
I hope not.

-alex