hi, first of all, as far as i know, there are a lot of short calls. think of all the calls that end in a voicemail box where the caller doesn't leave a message. There is a lot of slack in 30 second minimums.
and, historically, 6/6 was used because 6 seconds is 10% of a minute - it just makes the billing much easier - move the decimal point over 1 digit and that's it. 1/60 = 0.0166 (bar) which makes for one fugly increment and means everything has to be rounded to reach a number that doesn't have an infinite fraction at the end of it. -yair On Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 9:52 AM, Trixter aka Bret McDanel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Thu, 2008-03-27 at 22:56 -0700, Douglas Garstang wrote: > > So, I have a general question. > > > > What billing increments do ITSP's who terminate SIP->PSTN normally > > bill in? > > > > We've been using carriers that bill 1/1, and the quality hasn't been > > too good, lots of 503's etc. We just started testing with someone else > > that offers much better ASR's (they failover internally between qwest, > > global crossing etc), but they bill 30/6. According to THEM, only > > companies that can't offer top quality routes bill 1/1. > > > > What's the deal here? Is this true? > > First, does it really matter? How many calls do you make that are less > than 30 seconds? Will the 6 second increment really affect your total > price? If the new price is higher, is the quality worth it? > > > I am unsure if there is a relation between billing increments and > quality, but ok. > > As for what a provider bills at that is up to the provider itself. This > may be passed on from the carriers they are using to terminate calls. > Generally on the PSTN (at least in the US) you will see a higher first > minute and lower additional minutes. This is because to set up the call > a few queries have to be made which cost the carriers money. Even if > the phone isnt answered there are these costs. So what they do is > charge a higher first minute to recover these costs and when the phone > is never answered they write that off into other costs which is paid for > in part by that first minute and each additional minute. > > Now most residential service in the US is billed in whole minute > increments while many business plans are 6 second increments. Really > there isnt any reason for them to not be each second increments. > > For short duration calls a higher billing increment is more profitable, > which means that other costs can be absorbed by that. > > Since few PSTN based carriers offer 1/1 billing (I think this is > changing though) on most plans it may be true that you cant do 1/1 with > quality carriers as a general rule. I do not however believe it to be > an absolute rule, and again there is cost vs quality. > > Its very likely that their carriers are doing 30/6 or 6/6 to them, which > are (or at least were) very common business billing plans. I dont know > why they did 6 seconds, the carriers claimed it had something to do with > the way that duration was calculated over a decade ago, that the systems > would not let them do 1/1. I didnt believe it then, and certainly now > its not true, or if it is there is no real reason for it to be true > (intercarrier settlements are often enough millisecond resolution > showing that it doesnt have to be true). > > Most of this is just to bill for "slack time", and it extends far beyond > this, telecom USA did that 1010220 or whatever, 99 cents for the first > 20 minutes, 5 cents there after. Well if you do the math, its 5 cents > for each minute, unless you hang up before 20. They relied on the slack > time for profit (this plan is many years old, it may be cheaper now). > > > > > -- > Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com Bret McDanel > Belfast +44 28 9099 6461 US +1 516 687 5200 > http://www.trxtel.com the phone company that pays you! > > > _______________________________________________ > --Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com-- > > asterisk-biz mailing list > To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz > _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com-- asterisk-biz mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz
