[Asterisk-Users] Bill seconds

Thu Jun 16 18:37:52 MST 2005


>From: David John Walsh <davidjohnwalsh at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: David John Walsh <davidjohnwalsh at gmail.com>,Asterisk Users 
>Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion <asterisk-users at lists.digium.com>
>To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion 
><asterisk-users at lists.digium.com>
>Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Bill seconds
>Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 18:36:00 +0100
>
>Another way I have seen this done is to sell units, not pounds and pence 
>credit
>
>eg a £2 calling card has 160 units (ratio of 80 units to the pound).
>
>If you were to charge 8p per min you make that 8 units per min.   This
>gives you a 20% increase which might help if your on per second
>billing to your upstream carrier.
>
>otherwise you need to make changes to your rating engine  with a "
>/60*58 " to re-rate all calls back to a second ( /60) and move the
>minuite charge to be a 58 second minuit (*58)
What configuration files I must to edit to achieved this?

>
>how that is achived needs you to give specific information on which
>calling card platform you are using.
I am using ASTCC.
>
>You may have a problem in defining  the rates as "per minuite" if they
>are not a widely understood minuite legally - it depends on the laws
>of your country (in the UK the Trades Descriptions Act would apply and
>you'd be hit hard)
>
>David
>
>
>
>On 16/06/05, Race Vanderdecken <asteriskusers at codetyrant.com> wrote:
> > Your customers are not going to like this.
> >
> > You have to change the way you bill for calls.
> >
> > For $1 your customer gets 60 seconds worth of phone time. However you
> > have to also charge, like the Bells used to, for setup and teardown
> > time. Remember the operator used to say " Deposit $1.85 for the first
> > three minutes" and then it would be 30 cents per minute after that.
> >
> > Buy a phone card from a competitor and look at the fine print on the
> > card.
> >
> > You charge buy seconds they are connected to your system, not for the
> > time they are actually talking to the remote party.
> >
> > Example:
> >
> > To set up the call you charge 10 seconds, and to stop the call you
> > charge 5 seconds. So the customer only gets 45 seconds of call time. You
> > get a 15 second cushion.
> >
> > Does not seem fair does it. But if they buy an hour 3600 seconds worth
> > of calls the missing 15 seconds won't be noticed.
> >
> > You can go further.
> >
> > Say they buy a 3600 second card. When they call to check their time the
> > first time on the card you tell them they have 60 minutes, but you
> > charge them 30 seconds for asking. Set up the code so that every time
> > they call you have too fields to track call time. The time they think
> > they have and the time you know they have.
> >
> > You tell them they have 45 minutes, but the other field knows they only
> > have 30 minutes. If they ask then your script says "45 minutes left" but
> > you cut them off when the use 30.
> >
> > Then you chip away each time the call. 10 seconds for making a call, and
> > 5 seconds when they hang up. This way you are always in credit and can
> > cut them off without loosing money.
> >
> > Some card vendors go even further. They sell 3600 seconds, but each time
> > a call is made they whack a random percentage of the time.
> >
> > Worse yet their card system will randomly or systematically hang up on
> > callers. This will cause the user to redial the call and get hit with
> > connection charges that vary.
> >
> > Customers eventually figure out which cards do this type of chicanery
> > and they stop buying them, but only if there is a competitor for the
> > route they want to call.
> >
> > Such is the world of unregulated phone calls. Not pretty is it.
> >
> > Charging time for each call is part of the business. If you don't want
> > to charge time to setup and teardown then you have to charge more per
> > minute. Your customers get all the time the pay for down to the second,
> > but you are going to have to charge more per minute or you will be in
> > the boat you are in now.
> >
> > Race "the tyrant" Vanderdecken
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
> > [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Darren
> > Wiebe
> > Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2005 1:06 AM
> > To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
> > Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Bill seconds
> >
> > I've done a little thinking on this one....  If you are using ASTCC, it
> > would be fairly straightforward to edit it and have it make a 2 second
> > adjustment.  If your using another solution it probably would be fairly
> > easy also...
> >
> > Darren Wiebe
> > darren at aleph-com.net
> >
> > Americo Sanchez C. wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > We've installed Asterisk on a rural development project and we're
> > > testing a prepaid phone service. As far as now we're having terrific
> > > service results but there's a problem with the calls billing at our
> > > local telecom. For instance, a farmer buys a 1 dollar phone card and
> > use
> > > it to dial a USA number, the call should lasts for 60 seconds.
> > Asterisk
> > > is doing a great job finishing the call exactly at 60 seconds. The
> > > problem is that the telecom company billing system adds a two second
> > > delay for each call, so the bill is not for 1 but 2 minutes (they
> > round
> > > fractions up).
> > >
> > > We're loosing money and the local telecom doesn't seem to have a
> > > solution for this matter.
> > >
> > > Have you experienced something similar? Do you have any idea of how
> > can
> > > we solve this? Is it possible to configure Asterisk so that the system
> > > thinks that a minute has 58 seconds instead of 60?
> > >
> > > _________________________________________________________________
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> > >
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