[asterisk-users] Next Move - Hosting

[Mike Trest - Personal]

Hi,
Your question is appropriate because you are asking about the best 
design approach.  Although it does have economic issues related.

First, let us dispatch the economics because they will impact your 
technical approach.  The real issue here is not cost of additional E1 
but exposure to fairly large liabilities for Trunk/International 
calls on the same E1 as your company.  If your shared customer is 
late on payment, your company will need to pay the E1 provider for 
all calls in any circumstances.  This could lead to cut off of your 
companies service if you do not pay.

Now the technical.   Avoid the MITEL unless it has features that you 
cannot manage on the Asterisk - - - which are very few if any ! ! !

IF YOU ARE GOING TO REMAIN E1 CARRIER BASED: I suggest you separate 
your clients onto a different E1 where the phone numbers assigned can 
be easily tracked separately by your Asterisk billing.   If your 
clients simultaneous calls justify the cost.  Put each client on a separate E1.

IF YOU ARE GOING TO ELECT VOIP CARRIER BASED:  I suggest you select a 
SIP provider who can issue local numbers to you and that you manage 
the clients on a pair of asterisks with "shared" service.   You can, 
with experience, deal with the over-lap extensions quite nicely since 
you are an IT guy.    That pair of asterisks can both be served by a 
decent internet connection.   Depending on the class of machine(s) 
you use, you can support 200 ~ 400 simultaneous calls.

YES, pay greatest attention to the billing software you select 
because that will be you biggest "black hole" which can pull all your 
energy into it depths to resolve billing matters with your customers.

NO, I cannot tout one billing system over another.  Perhaps someone 
else will do that via private EMAIL
because that part of this discussions is NOT for this list.


Best wishes.  ..mike..

At 06:09 AM 4/4/2008, you wrote:
>I posted this to asterisk biz but didn't get a reply.. I didn't want to
>offend anyone being that this is kind of branching into hosting, and
>maybe outside of the remit of this list.
>
>Hi
>
>Been lurking on the user list for a while but I have some what of an
>immediate requirement and I'm wondering if you can suggest the best
>solution (if mines a rubbish idea)
>
>I have been testing Asterisk as a bolt on to our Mitel 3300.. its been
>doing some softphones for users abroad, etc and I'm happy with the fact
>I want to progress to a full system.
>
>However during this testing phase 2 customers of mine (I'm a IT Service
>Provider) have ask for some managed, collocated small business servers,
>which include the requirement for me to host their phones.
>
>No Problem I thought, I'm well on the way to this anyhow.
>
>So I'm thinking (although not tried it) that if I got my Asterisk box
>running for my company (E1 card for outside link) I would AIX the hosted
>PBX for the customers to my PBX to allow them to make outgoing calls. I
>would get my teleco to provide phone numbers for them and also get my
>PBX to redirect that number to the hosted PBX.
>
>Is this correct so far? Or should I keep their system separate on
>another E1? Or should I forget my PBX and push their incoming / outing
>calls out to a SIP / AIX provider on the net and wash my hands of it?
>
>Also I know you can run multi context on one host BUT can they also run
>the same extension numbers? Or would I have to let one company have
>401-410 and the next company have 411 to 420, etc, etc (I'm guessing
>that's the case)
>
>And lastly.. Call accounting.. Certainly found a lot of good info about
>certain call accounting applications but as anyone got any good feedback
>about one they personally use.. Id like to keep it GNU / Open Source /
>Free while I build myself up.. Although I don't want to compete with the
>big boys, Id like to think I could get 10-20 or so customers co-located.
>
>Cheers
>
>Tim
>
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>loss or damage arising in any way from the receipt or use thereof.
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