[asterisk-biz] Re: asterisk-biz Digest, Vol 19, Issue 26

[Dovid Bender]

The easiest thing for you in your case is to outsource
the entire idea to a company that deals with asterisk
and telecom. Normaly I tell people to do it themselve
but being that you are not in the telcom business
(it's an just an add on for your business) it's not
worth getting your fingers dirty. If you want full
control over what happens and you will go more in to
telecom then it's worth geting your fingers dirty. I
know when I first got in to asterisk I asked for a gui
to make my life easier and everyone said to learn it
on my own. This was good advice since had I just gone
with a GUI I would of never learnt the system.

You wrote that you needed a lot of minutes and the
reason was because you had to fullfill a legal
obligation that the cards do work. Normally its worth
going with quality but here since these arent going to
be repeat customers I would say to go with an average
provider that dosent have the best quality but at the
same time dosent have crazy rates. You will save
yourself about $0.005 a minute, but ill adds up.
 
Included in asterisk there is a something called
astcc. It stancds for Asterisk Calling Card. In it you
can set how much you want to charge the customer.
Based on a $1.00 card you can set the system to bill
them $.50 per minute in 60 second incriments. So if
they speak for 61 seconds they used up the card.
Chances are you will be paying in 6/60 so you will
makje on that as well. ATCC also has the option to use
pin numbers. I believe (dont remember for sure) that
you can set an expiration date. It stores the info in
a DB. It also recards the date of first use. So you
can write a script that goes thru the DB looks for PIN
numbers that were first use more than 6 months ago and
remove them from the DB. Also adding minutes to the
card can only be done from the asterisk admin's side
if you want it to. If you dotn you just put on the
card that they cant. Personaly if some one wants to
recharge it why not ? You are billing them $.50
aminute and your cost will be under $0.02 a monute.

For toll free number that depends on the provider that
you use. In asterisk you can set what calls to allow
the server to accept and which ones not to (based on
CID and other factors).

It's really hard to restrict origination form
payphones. You would need the numbers of all of the
payphones in the US. You only find out if they were
calling from a pay hpone when you get the bill.

I would recomend using DID's for your system. This way
you pay per minute per channel. This usually gives you
the peace of mind that you wont run out of channels.
You will have all the lines that you need. I would
vote againse using regular phone lines (DID's aka
internet lines are easier to work with as well as
cheaper). Also  I owuld keep the server in a data
center. What happens if the power goes out in your
office ?

Using unlimited vonage for outgoing woudl not work. IF
they see you using to many minutes or they suspect you
reselling them, they will cut off your phone. Paying
per minute is also a lot easier for billing since you
pay for what you use. Not more not less.

Alos most VOIP companies that deal with low usage will
allow any amount. They usually just require you to
prepay. If you want us to set up such a system we can
do it for you. You have all the facts above. Good luck
with your business.

Regards,
Dovid

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