[Asterisk-Users] VoIP Termination

[Jon Lawrence]

On Friday 17 December 2004 09:10, Shoval Tomer wrote:
> <snip>
>
> > Fortunately, asterisk will do that for you to the second, looking at
> > the cdr records and totalling up the duration column for a specific
> > period will tell you what your bill would be at the few cents a minute
> > you'll be charged.
>
> Actually not true, although a common mistake.
>
> You do not pay to the provider by the second, so never, ever, ever total
> the duration column.
>
> Usually you don't pay by the minute either, but by some intermediate,
> like in units of 12 seconds, but you need to check it with the provider.
>
> This is a serious mistake, and it gets worse the more calls you total.
>
> Let's say, that you pay by the minute.
> Having made 6 calls of under ten seconds costs you as if you've made 6
> calls of 59 seconds.
> If you just total the duration of the calls, you'd think you're paying
> for one minute and you're actually paying for six.
> That's a big mistake.
>
> Now imagine you had 12000 calls to total.
>
> Always total the price for each call, never the duration.
>

OK, yes there's more to it than simply adding the up the duration of the 
calls. But, you shouldn't have any problem finding out from your provider how 
they charge for calls.
For example I believe that BT in the UK charge a minimum of 0.05 for any call, 
but so long as the call is longer than that you pay x amount per minute -= 
rounded to the next minute no doubt.
Once you know how your calls are charged, calculating your bill from the cdr 
records should be no big deal. Either load the records into a spreadsheet and 
do the calculations or use something like php or perl and pull the records 
into a webpage.

Jon