[asterisk-users] Rate sheet "normalization"

[A E [Gmail]]

On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 6:52 PM, Markus <universe at truemetal.org> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> this question is not Asterisk specific, but since there are so many
> experts present on this list, maybe its OK to ask anyways.
>
> I'm having a hard time "normalizing" rate sheets from different providers.
> What I mean with this: the goal is to always get the cheapest rate for a
> given destination. What I would like to do is throw like 10 rate sheets
> from different providers together and as output get a single rate sheet
> with only the cheapest rates. However, some providers are listing a
> country, lets say Germany, as code "49" with a specific rate, and another
> provider will list each city individually, and each code separately, e.g.
> Berlin "4930", Hamburg "4940" etc., and probably different cities have
> different rates as well. Now, if the "49" route of the first provider is
> cheaper, my system (a2billing) will still use the more expensive "4930"
> code because it is more specific.
>
> I'm looking for some awesome, smart tool that will automatically
> "normalize" all these code differences and output a clean ratesheet with
> only the cheapest rates.
>
> Does such a thing exist? I wonder how everyone else is "normalizing" their
> different rate sheets. With a homebrewn script?
>
> Thanks!
>
>
Markus,

you're not the first person and certainly not the last person who's ever
asked about this. I had tried this on several mailing lists a little while
ago.  A tool that could handle 10 or maybe even 5 provider rate-sheets all
of which can potentially completely differ in formats from each other. Even
worse are the rate update sheets from each provider which are many a times
different from the initial rate sheets that the provider may have given you
and then again they will differ from the rate updates from the remaining 4
providers you've just painstakingly inserted into your DB.

Given the popularity of Asterisk and other popular OSS based telephony
platforms with several successful businesses running 100s of millions of
minutes, you'd think at least a few have sorted this problem out. But I
believe those who have, never respond to these emails as it took them quite
a bit of effort to create such a tool and aren't willing to just give it
away.

Just what I have observed (and was even blatantly told by someone on some
mailing list, can't remember exactly)

You may have to advertise in the commercial / business list or offer a
bounty. There are several commercial solutions available but I think they
all come as a "feature" of a larger billing/rating/routing platform
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/attachments/20120328/40f20bf8/attachment.htm>