[Asterisk-Users] GSM Gateway / Terminal for sale

[Steve Kennedy]

On Fri, Jan 06, 2006 at 01:23:26PM -0000, Chris Bagnall wrote:

> > I don't get it. What is the advantage of using a GSM gateway? 
> > VOIP calls are pretty inexpensive as they are now.
> It largely depends on the country you're calling. Here in the UK, calls to
> mobiles are maintained at an artificially high rate because the terminating
> network (the mobile networks) get a cut of call revenue for calls *to* your
> mobile. By contrast, in the US, the mobile customer often pays a small
> charge per minute on incoming calls (as I understand the market over there).
> You'll also find in the UK the mobile phone market is heavily subsidized by
> the networks such that you can get phones for free if you sign up to 12
> month contracts. I often find that it's cost-effective to get a new contract
> every 12 months (with a free phone), even if I don't want the phone. Flog
> the phone on ebay and you've got a spare SIM with lots of inclusive minutes
> for almost nothing.

In the UK the wholesale rates are set by Ofcom (like the FCC), which
works out about 7p'ish per minute.

However the operators can offer retail bundles (including phones) and
for a monthly contract they "throw" in various ammounts of cross network
minutes (or free to their own network or whatever). With clever
dial-plans and multiple terminals connected to multiple networks you can
generally get "free" calls to mobile users (basically clever least cost
routing, time of day sometimes needs to be taken into account as well).

However there are some disadvantages, the main being you cant set CLI of
the outgoing call as it will always be tied to the SIM of the mobile
terminal.

Another is that you can NOT run a GSM gateway (as they're known) for 3rd
parties. So if you want to connect your office PBX to a gateway to make
use of cheap mobile termination for your own company that's fine, but as
an ITSP (or traditional telco) you can not allow 3rd party traffic to
utilise a gateway. If networks find you are using a gateway (as a telco)
they can cut it off, no questions asked. Gateways have been determined
to be fixed infrastructure, therefore NOT mobile.

There is (or maybe was by now) an Ofcom consultation asking whether this
should be changed, the mobile operators will fight it, telcos and other
users will be asking for it to be changed.

Of course this is UK specific, other countries have more lenient
policies (I think Belgium allow gateways, France doesn't allow any kind,
and some allow them with the co-operation of the operators).


Steve

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