[Asterisk-Users] G.729 licensing - Hardware Devices rather than software

[Adam Goryachev]

On Tue, 2005-07-19 at 00:35 +0000, Obelix wrote:
> 
> I have been reading a number of the past threads about G.729 licensing., about
> how the registration keys are linked to the network configurations, limited
> number of registrations etc, etc.
> 
> Is there no reason why the decoding can't be done in with some Asterisk
> compatible hardware, so that once the adapter is bought, all licensing issues
> go away.
> 
> In that way the owner could fiddle with the installation to his hearts content,
> without having to bother about reregistering licenses after some changes.
> 
> It would save both Digium and end users a lot of hassle.

Except you have just drastically increased the cost of the item. ie, to
purchase 2 licenses (currently) it is USD$20. If you need to ship a
physical product, it is going to be USD$20 + USD$30 or more for shipping
(to Australia)... Or wherever that person is. You also have additional
costs of repair/replacement of the hardware (since something will always
go wrong with some percentage of them).

Also, while it is apparently a manual process to upgrade from 10
licenses to 20, imagine needing to have 10 hardware devices because you
kept adding licenses in stages? or needing to return the 'smaller'
device to receive the 'bigger' device?

While I agree that the current method may not work 100% of the time, I
personally believe that it is probably about as good as it can get.

Well, possible ways it could be better include:
*) Automated (instant) sending of the reg key instead of waiting 1 or 2
days
*) Automated upgrade options/re-registration (but then MS also forces
you to speak to a real person before they will allow you to re-register
their products)

Regards,
Adam