[asterisk-users] Asterisk Realtime Billing Question???

Thu Oct 21 05:38:01 CDT 2010

actually my mail was not meant to be disrespectful. it was an inquiry. i have a billing system and had a few of those thoughts regarding real time billing. my issue was explaining to a customer that his call disconnected an hour earlier because someone else used his account.. I'm doing retail not wholesale, you may understand my question more clearly now?

Regards

Tarek Sawah

Information Technology Adviser

Integrated Digital Systems

CCNP, MCSE, RHCE, TELECOM

USA: +1 386 492 9993

----------------------------------------
> From: sherwood.mcgowan at gmail.com
> Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 05:18:17 -0500
> To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
> Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] Asterisk Realtime Billing Question???
>
> Tarek,
>
> I'm not sure why it would be our problem is someone came into your
> office and started making long distance calls over a trunk I was
> providing your company.... I'm pretty sure that if I had tried that
> with some of my carriers in the past they would have laughed until
> they cried...
>
> Oh, and also, since this was a wholesale carrier, the customers were
> in control of their own freeze amount. It was there to allow THEM to
> control their account better. I'd be willing to bet that my clients
> would have been happy to just keep billing them for every minute they
> used.
>
> Lastly, I would like to just say, I'm not the guy who requested the
> feature, I'm the guy who figured out how to make it happen, and making
> it happen back in early 2006, when the MySQL addon was just BARELY
> stable...
>
> It's ok, I don't need respect, I have the knowledge that I'm the mick,
> and I'm awesome :P
>
> Cheers :D
>
> On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 4:37 AM, Tarek Sawah  wrote:
> > If you look at it the way you want it.. you usually tell your customer the
> > available funds and minutes in their account right?
> > How will you explain "politely" that you have dropped their calls for lack
> > of balance because someone else used their account?
> > If you don't tell them their balance and call duration before call .. then
> > that won't be a problem.
> > Now you can do some kind of script to do the math and disconnect calls when
> > balance is over.
> >
> > From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
> > [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of DHAVAL
> > INDRODIYA
> > Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2010 9:31 AM
> > To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
> > Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] Asterisk Realtime Billing Question???
> >
> > Hi Sherwood ,
> >
> > well , i think you did not understand my question , i want real time billing
> > like as i mentioned that if i want to dial 5 number with different call rate
> > how can i access same
> > balance into those 5 people, if all are connected how can i periodically
> > update billing , as you suggested it will assign total balance to those 5
> > people but actually we can not do like this as total balance of user $100 ,
> > as per your suggestion it will give $100 for those 5 people which is
> > practically wrong i think.
> >
> > give your thougts.
> >
> > regards
> > dhaval
> > On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 11:44 AM, Sherwood McGowan
> >  wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 12:24 AM, DHAVAL INDRODIYA
> >  wrote:
> > Hello All,
> >
> > after so long time i posted a new question regarding billing, hope  anyone
> > have some solution.
> >
> > I have situation in that i want to do billing of more than 1 call in real
> > time below are scenario and explanation.
> >
> >
> > Scenario:
> >  A customer called my DID number and after that from here i dial few number
> > let say 5 number. once number are placed into DIAL
> > i will put this customer into conference [MEETME] , once a Members are
> > picked up call they will also patched into conference and
> > talking is started, every thing working fine with DIAL-PLAN and DB look up.
> >
> > Now, i want to do billing on customer dialed my DID, and from that actually
> > it DIALED 5 numbers, how can i DO real time billing
> > into this situation, like numbers can be different It can be ISD,STD,Local
> > and also free .
> >
> > if customer having initial balance of $100 then how can i check balance
> > every time.in a situation once balance is nil then i want to disconnect
> > calls . is any one facing this type of situation.
> >
> > give me some  idea ,
> >
> > regards
> > Dhaval
> >
> > --
> > _____________________________________________________________________
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> >
> >
> > Dhaval,
> > This sounds very much like a system I'm working on for a client right now.
> > I'm not permitted to disclose much about it due to the NDA i signed, but
> > I'll risk giving you a point in the right direction.
> >
> > First, you should create a table in your database that has a column called
> > callid, and other columns that you will have to decide upon. This table will
> > be called something like 'call_references'. Oh, and you'll want to define
> > callid as the primary key for records in that table, but DO NOT make it an
> > autoincrement, you're going to populate it with a value that is described in
> > the next step.
> >
> > Second, at the beginning of the original call you mentioned, define a
> > variable that will be unique to that call. I personally have done this by
> > stripping all non-digits from the caller's callerid (using
> > Set(newcid=${FILTER(0123456789,${CALLERID(number)})} ), and then adding the
> > to ${EPOCH}. I did it this way: ${MATH(${newcid}+${EPOCH})}.
> >
> > Next (this is where I have to start being a bit vague), you're going to
> > perform an INSERT query, creating a new call_references record (using that
> > variable I just showed you how to construct as callid's value).
> >
> > Now, when you defined that variable, you should have preceded the variable
> > name with two underscores ( __ ), which will tell Asterisk that channels
> > spawned by the current channel will inherit that variable and it's value.
> >
> > Voila, you now have a method for storing realtime data such as billing
> > information between MULTIPLE calls.
> >
> > I wish I could tell you more, but I can't violate my client's Non-Disclosure
> > Agreement.
> >
> > Hope this helps you out!
> >
> > Sherwood McGowan
> >
> >
> > --
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> >
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> >
> >
> >
> > --
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>
> --
> _____________________________________________________________________
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