Re: [AFMUG] New to VoIP

[Eric Kuhnke]

I have all kinds of threshold alerts set up with my SIP trunking provider for outgoing international calls, and limitations for concurrent calls on outgoing SIP in my own Asterisk system. One end-user with a compromised SIP account could do some damage but not a great deal. Do you by default only allow calls to +1 and just block everything else?ￜ Did you specifically block off the Caribbean destinations that are also in +1 (and appear to have regular 3-digit area codes, per NANPA) but cost $0.65/minute? Those are famous for toll fraud destinatinos. Fun trivia tidbit, it turns out that every SIP trunking provider I have accounts with by default blocks calls to Sierra Leone (+232) and Liberia. I forwarded an extension to my mobile phone in Freetown, Sierra Leone while I was there earlier this year, and had to specifically request to get it unblocked. It took a couple of emails back and forth to convince them that I really was the account holder and I really did have a legitimate use for outbound trunking to +232. On 10/8/15 7:03 PM, Ken Hohhof wrote: International calling scares the bejeebers out of me.ￜ The billing issues, and fear of toll fraud.ￜ We have it blocked.ￜ No customer has ever noticed. (Our customer base is not very worldly.)ￜ Seriously, I have never had a customer want to call outside North America. I take it back, I did get one person wanting to get VoIP phone service specifically to get flat rate International calls after going on a mission to Africa and wanting to keep up with her newfound friends.ￜ I suggested she get Vonage. If I did offer International calling, I would probably want to enable it only for customers who specifically requested it, and I would want to set a limit on how much they could run up per month, maybe even make them keep a balance.ￜ I wouldn't want someone's kid to run up a $1000 phone bill and then refuse to pay it. -----Original Message----- From: Eric Kuhnke Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2015 8:54 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] New to VoIP Question for those doing VoIP, how are you processing your billing for international calling monthly? Extract the CDR for the customer's SIP registration for days 1-31 of the month, and give it to a third party billing service? Using the rate deck you get from your outgoing SIP trunk provider, but increasing each number by 1/3?ￜ For example, say I pay $0.10/minute for calling to +92 (Pakistan), so I set my rate for customer billing at 13 or 14 cents a minute. Say for example you have a ton of customers who do 99% of their calling inside country code 1 (US/Canada, not the Caribbean nations which are also in +1). Your outgoing SIP trunk with a provider such as didlogic costs $0.0069 per minute for US calls. You're paying $0.85 per month per DID in your NPA-NXX. All is happy. On 10/8/15 6:40 PM, Ken Hohhof wrote: That's very impressive revenue.ￜ We get $20 and some competitors charge $15, and I had not even thought of charging for inside wiring maintenance. We usually try hard to convince people to just plug a DECT phone base into the ATA.ￜ But inside wire maintenance is a big cash cow for the phone companies, kind of like extended warranties at Best Buy. -----Original Message----- From: Mark - Myakka Technologies Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2015 5:13 PM To: Brett A Mansfield Subject: Re: [AFMUG] New to VoIP Brett, Depends on where you are selling, we have almost a 50% take rate of our phone system.ￜ That comes out to about 800 residential lines we are selling at $29.95.ￜ BTW - almost 50% of those lines are also purchasing inside wiring maintenance at $8.95/month.