[Asterisk-Users] Telephone support charging system with Asterisk?

[JP Carballo]

Mike Dent wrote:

> My idea was for them to phone or login to a website and create a
> support account. They can then top this account up with X amount of
> credits, lets say 1 credit= 5 mins of support. Their account has a PIN
> associated with it.
>
This is a typical prepaid system at work.

> When they call to get support they have to enter there number and are
> told how much credits they have remaining. They then get put through
> to my office phone, if I am available and pickup, they start to get
> charged for the duration of their call. If I am unavailable they go to
> voicemail and dont get charged.
>
A few lines in the dial plan or a macro is all that's needed for this.

> Does this sound like something which is possible with Asterisk?
> Anybody doing something similar?
>
I don't do this for support since support is free for our customers.
But you can use ASTCC and generate a prepaid card for each support account.
Of course, you can call the number a "support account number" and they 
won't know the difference. :)

You will of course have to take into account your e-commerce system to 
allow your customers to pay online.
ASTPP works with OSCommerce while I've managed to make ASTCC work with 
Virtuemart/Joomla.
There are other applications. Look around.

-- 
JP Carballo

http://www.netfone2x.com
Bringing the world closer.

It might look like I'm doing nothing, but at the cellular level, I'm really quite busy.