[asterisk-biz] ITSP Billing Increments....?

[Trixter aka Bret McDanel]

On Thu, 2008-03-27 at 22:56 -0700, Douglas Garstang wrote:
> So, I have a general question.
> 
> What billing increments do ITSP's who terminate SIP->PSTN normally
> bill in?
> 
> We've been using carriers that bill 1/1, and the quality hasn't been
> too good, lots of 503's etc. We just started testing with someone else
> that offers much better ASR's (they failover internally between qwest,
> global crossing etc), but they bill 30/6. According to THEM, only
> companies that can't offer top quality routes bill 1/1.
> 
> What's the deal here? Is this true?

First, does it really matter?  How many calls do you make that are less
than 30 seconds? Will the 6 second increment really affect your total
price?  If the new price is higher, is the quality worth it?


I am unsure if there is a relation between billing increments and
quality, but ok.

As for what a provider bills at that is up to the provider itself.  This
may be passed on from the carriers they are using to terminate calls.
Generally on the PSTN (at least in the US) you will see a higher first
minute and lower additional minutes.  This is because to set up the call
a few queries have to be made which cost the carriers money.  Even if
the phone isnt answered there are these costs.  So what they do is
charge a higher first minute to recover these costs and when the phone
is never answered they write that off into other costs which is paid for
in part by that first minute and each additional minute.

Now most residential service in the US is billed in whole minute
increments while many business plans are 6 second increments.  Really
there isnt any reason for them to not be each second increments.

For short duration calls a higher billing increment is more profitable,
which means that other costs can be absorbed by that.

Since few PSTN based carriers offer 1/1 billing (I think this is
changing though) on most plans it may be true that you cant do 1/1 with
quality carriers as a general rule.  I do not however believe it to be
an absolute rule, and again there is cost vs quality.

Its very likely that their carriers are doing 30/6 or 6/6 to them, which
are (or at least were) very common business billing plans.  I dont know
why they did 6 seconds, the carriers claimed it had something to do with
the way that duration was calculated over a decade ago, that the systems
would not let them do 1/1.  I didnt believe it then, and certainly now
its not true, or if it is there is no real reason for it to be true
(intercarrier settlements are often enough millisecond resolution
showing that it doesnt have to be true).

Most of this is just to bill for "slack time", and it extends far beyond
this, telecom USA did that 1010220 or whatever, 99 cents for the first
20 minutes, 5 cents there after.  Well if you do the math, its 5 cents
for each minute, unless you hang up before 20.  They relied on the slack
time for profit (this plan is many years old, it may be cheaper now).


> 
-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
Belfast +44 28 9099 6461        US +1 516 687 5200
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