VoIP Mailing List Archives

[Mike at Trest.COM]

Hi,
Your question is appropriate because you are asking about the best
design approach. Although it does have economic issues related.

First, let us dispatch the economics because they will impact your
technical approach. The real issue here is not cost of additional E1
but exposure to fairly large liabilities for Trunk/International
calls on the same E1 as your company. If your shared customer is
late on payment, your company will need to pay the E1 provider for
all calls in any circumstances. This could lead to cut off of your
companies service if you do not pay.

Now the technical. Avoid the MITEL unless it has features that you
cannot manage on the Asterisk - - - which are very few if any ! ! !

IF YOU ARE GOING TO REMAIN E1 CARRIER BASED: I suggest you separate
your clients onto a different E1 where the phone numbers assigned can
be easily tracked separately by your Asterisk billing. If your
clients simultaneous calls justify the cost. Put each client on a separate E1.

IF YOU ARE GOING TO ELECT VOIP CARRIER BASED: I suggest you select a
SIP provider who can issue local numbers to you and that you manage
the clients on a pair of asterisks with "shared" service. You can,
with experience, deal with the over-lap extensions quite nicely since
you are an IT guy. That pair of asterisks can both be served by a
decent internet connection. Depending on the class of machine(s)
you use, you can support 200 ~ 400 simultaneous calls.

YES, pay greatest attention to the billing software you select
because that will be you biggest "black hole" which can pull all your
energy into it depths to resolve billing matters with your customers.

NO, I cannot tout one billing system over another. Perhaps someone
else will do that via private EMAIL
because that part of this discussions is NOT for this list.
Best wishes. ..mike..

At 06:09 AM 4/4/2008, you wrote: