[asterisk-users] No Bull Service Providers
Nick Khamis
symack at gmail.com
Thu Sep 29 11:03:26 CDT 2011
>>You will notice on the calling card shelves there are only a handful of companies producing lots of different cards.
I have! That's what led me to CC for starters, then implementing a
more novel "startup" product. But. Regardless of all the corruption,
my goal is to offer something honest "TRUTH, I like that ;)", reliable
and as consistent as possible. We cannot compete against free, but we
can try our best. Again, CC is just an entry point, we can doing this
like:
speech to text -> Natural Language Processing (NLP) -> text to speech.
Bringing computer science to VoIP. This is our long term..
I just need to keep the investor happy for now..
Nick
On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 11:48 AM, Jeff LaCoursiere <jeff at sunfone.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, 29 Sep 2011, Nick Khamis wrote:
>
>> Hello Jeff,
>>
>> There will always be fierce competition, we are starting of with
>> prepaid for an obvious source of quick revenue, we will also be
>> rolling out a few more products in the next year.. It seems like they
>> LIE about their LD rates. A company in Australia was
>> charged with this not too long ago. Stolen minutes? Not that I would
>> be interested in stealing! I just want to be educated
>> in such an act.
>
> You will often see discussion on this list about asterisk servers being
> "compromised" and the result being very expensive calls placed until the
> compromise is noticed and shutdown. Those calls are placed by nefarious
> wholesalers that take advantage of the "free" routes they manage to find as
> long as possible. Hard to compete against free!
>
> Other games the calling card companies play - they will release a card with
> unbelievable rates so that it quickly gains market share, then slowly back
> off the minutes offered by the card (without changing the rate sheets of
> course) until it is noticed by the consumers, who stop buying it. Then that
> card is discontinued and another is produced in the same manner. You will
> notice on the calling card shelves there are only a handful of companies
> producing lots of different cards.
>
> There are many more tricks they use to dupe the consumers and stifle
> competition. Hidden or non-disclosed connection rates, "maintenance fees"
> charged every few days to burn off credit on the cards, time restrictions on
> the lower rates, etc. We actually produced a card once we called "TRUTH"
> (which was honest about rates, had no hidden fees, etc) and it sold ok for a
> while, but when the card next to it on the shelf claims twice the minutes
> for the same $$$, eventually they win.
>
> In the end this business doesn't make money unless you are selling millions
> of minutes per month, and even then the margins are slim and you have to
> play the same games to compete. What we thought would be a fairly easy
> business to run became a maintenance nightmare, and a single instance of
> fraud could wipe out months worth of profits.
>
> A2billing didn't exist when we started, so we rolled our own. Seems pretty
> popular now - maybe it would work well for you.
>
> Good luck,
>
> j
>
>>
>> Of course we don't have to use the same in/outbound providers. I
>> should have been clearer about that. You mentioned Least Cost
>> Route/Rate (LCR), any reason why you did not use what is already out
>> there? Provided by a2billing etc...? We can also implement something
>> using AGI if needed....
>>
>> Nick.
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 11:21 AM, Jeff LaCoursiere <jeff at sunfone.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, 29 Sep 2011, Nick Khamis wrote:
>>>
>>>> I should have mentioned we are interested in international long
>>>> distance. That will
>>>> be a big part of our business.
>>>>
>>>
>>> It sounds like you are intending to start a calling card company. Good
>>> luck
>>> - the competition is fierce, and you will be competing against companies
>>> that outright lie about the capacity of their cards, and use stolen
>>> minutes
>>> to fulfill them as often as they can.
>>>
>>> If you intend to do wholesale by reselling, you don't need to use the
>>> same
>>> company for inbound and outbound. In fact for outbound you will probably
>>> have many upstream providers, as your goal will be to find the cheapest
>>> reliable route in every case. You will need to code something for route
>>> selection (I did this in C/AGI).
>>>
>>> For inbound I use IP Comms, which has worked well. Unlimited inbound per
>>> DID, but NOT unlimited channels. For outbound I had arrangements with
>>> STi,
>>> Voipjet, and many others for smaller route sets. I also participated in
>>> the
>>> wholesale market at Arbinet, who just got bought out by someone...
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> j
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 11:12 AM, Danny Nicholas <danny at debsinc.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> They aren't everywhere, but we have had good experience with Voicepulse
>>>>> and
>>>>> their rate is typically less than $0.015 per minute.
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
>>>>> [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Nick
>>>>> Khamis
>>>>> Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2011 10:09 AM
>>>>> To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
>>>>> Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] No Bull Service Providers
>>>>>
>>>>> Very true... But there should be an equilibrium, the "relaiable
>>>>> service,
>>>>> and
>>>>> aggressive pricing" comes to meet?
>>>>> Guys please share your experiences.
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>
>>>>> Nick
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 10:58 AM, C. Savinovich
>>>>> <c.savinovich at itntelecom.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In my professional opinion, the phrases "I don't want no Bull service"
>>>>>> and "I want the cheapest service" are total contradictions. Down the
>>>>>> road something is not going to give.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> C. Savinovich
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On September 29, 2011 at 10:47 AM Danny Nicholas <danny at debsinc.com>
>>>>>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> This belongs on the "commercial" list.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>> From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
>>>>>>> [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Nick
>>>>>>> Khamis
>>>>>>> Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2011 9:44 AM
>>>>>>> To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
>>>>>>> Subject: [asterisk-users] No Bull Service Providers
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hello Everyone,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> We are looking for DID and SIP Termination service providers. Since
>>>>>>> there are so many these days, can you guy mention the BIG players
>>>>>>> that are supplying the rest of the little guy? We are looking for the
>>>>>>> cheapest, and scaleable infrastructure (i.e. unlimited channels for
>>>>>>> DID, and trunks for termintation). To summarize we are looking for
>>>>>>> the major players in the DID and SIP Trunk market, no/limited
>>>>>>> headache. This is for wholesaler service.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks in Advance,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Nick
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
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>>>>>>
>>>>>> Christian Savinovich
>>>>>> Telecom & Telephony Consulting
>>>>>> 646.982.3572
>>>>>> c.savinovich at itntelecom.com
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
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>>>>>
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>>>>
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