Starting to tackle A2Billing – and not for the first time – brought out a few emotions. I mean – I like a good hard technical problem to sink my teeth into. Note that I said hard not impossible. But my first few dips into the cool waters of A2Billing just about froze my nu.., um, nasal cavities. I don’t know why I have found it so hard to get my brain around how A2Billing gets installed, and configured.
Well this time, I’m motivated. I mean, I actually finally wrote a couple dial plans all by myself, and understood what I was doing – sorta. I must be ready to tackle billing, right?
Well – I thought it might be helpful to document what works for anyone else with no experience and a definite mental block who might try to do this.
So – here's the basic plan. The family is spread out, far and wide. Even more so this year. Since I have deployed a few traditional SMB type PBX’s to great effect – it might be a good way for us all to stay in touch. Besides that I found out my uncle’s monthly phone bill was $65.00 / month. Looking at his bill – his calling would result in maybe $8.00, including fees for a DID, in the VoIP world. How many more relatives are in the same boat?
Nothing says commitment to a project like a $900 expense – so I acquired 4 GrandStream GXV 3000 telephones. Having used them in one other small company deployment, I felt the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t. They should arrive around the 20th.
I have until Christmas to figure out how to be a phone company for our far flung family.
So – here were the project goals for TFPS (The Family Phone System)
1.Hosted Provider / PBXIAF
To assure performance. No NAT issues, and a fat pipe to the net. (The last thing we need is network contention at the PBX to sink the boat before she sails.) We chose Lylix – for being just excellent providers all around with our other PBX’s.
2.Video Support (Obviously)
Otherwise the screens on the phones are expensive places to stick postit notes.
3.Bells and Whistles – Features and Functions
The Nerdvittles Add-ons have spoiled me forever – Ill never again be content sitting in front of a telephone that can not read me the weather in Orem, Utah or Walla Walla Washington at the touch of a few buttons. All the creature comforts, like free 411, CID lookup, and proper handling of 911 calls. Allison chirping away for my custom prompts via Cepstral, and the surf-reports all need to be available to the users of TFPS (The Family Phone System.)
4.Conference Room(s)
For those long winded family discussions, and special occasions like birthdays, nothing beats an all hand-on-deck conference call. I don’t think Asterisk conference rooms support video yet, but the audio will still be great to have.
5.Voice Mail
Obvious, but important. It would be nice if Follow me could work also -
6.Web Access
To Voice Mail (ARI), and the Follow Me controls inside, and the ability to change voice mail to email settings.
7.Extension to extension calls free.
Each family unit gets a Video Phone, and can call all other family units 24 / 7 without Fees.
8.Web Based Account Management – Calls to and from the OutSide NOT Free
They need to be able to log into their A2Billing user interface – and use all the cool tools inside. They need to be able to see their call records, and most importantly to Pay their bills in an automated way. (Have you ever tried to rate calls and make bills by hand? It’s TERRIBLE. ) This becomes more important as they add DID’s to the system, and begin using it as regular telephone as well.
9.Apportioned Maintenance Fees
The system should include in its automatic billing a way to charge a percentage (in this case 20%) of the hosting fees (5 families) – so everyone contributes equally to the monthly hosting fees. (At lylix, this will be about $7.00 per family per month)
I secretly believe they will all begin asking about ways to use the system more, and I don’t want to be involved each time they pay their part of the phone bill. So the plan is to enable PayPal (I know, I know. I’m taking the easy way out here. At least I Hope I am.)
The Setup
I have hardware that is known good, and has run PBXIAF very nicely before. I don’t want to introduce any unknowns that I don’t have to. I’m sure there’s gonna be plenty of them to deal with anyways.
The first steps was be to get a “pristine platform” prepared. So did an absolutely new and standard install of PBXIAF 1.3. Then installed and updated all modules. Lylix is still loading FreePBX 2.4, (everything else is pure PBXIAF 1.3), So I went through the Upgrade to 2.5.x as well. When this is done, all modules are up to date, and update-scripts, update-fixes has been run.
The next step is to add the g729 codec if you have the license for it.
I install my Cepstral licenses and voices at the same time. And Swift.
Now is a good time to make that first full backup. By this time, you will have and hour or so – depending upon how fast your internet and CDROM drives are – into the project.
The next time I work on this project – I will be installing all the goodies that make life pleasurable – Weather Reports and all. In Fact, every feature that I want TFPS (Remember the acronyms, kids, The Family Phone System) users to have access to should be installed, and tested as working normally before any A2Billing installation steps should be undertaken. (Makes it way easier to trouble shoot things.)
Then it’s time for Trunks
Till Next time -
Well this time, I’m motivated. I mean, I actually finally wrote a couple dial plans all by myself, and understood what I was doing – sorta. I must be ready to tackle billing, right?
Well – I thought it might be helpful to document what works for anyone else with no experience and a definite mental block who might try to do this.
So – here's the basic plan. The family is spread out, far and wide. Even more so this year. Since I have deployed a few traditional SMB type PBX’s to great effect – it might be a good way for us all to stay in touch. Besides that I found out my uncle’s monthly phone bill was $65.00 / month. Looking at his bill – his calling would result in maybe $8.00, including fees for a DID, in the VoIP world. How many more relatives are in the same boat?
Nothing says commitment to a project like a $900 expense – so I acquired 4 GrandStream GXV 3000 telephones. Having used them in one other small company deployment, I felt the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t. They should arrive around the 20th.
I have until Christmas to figure out how to be a phone company for our far flung family.
So – here were the project goals for TFPS (The Family Phone System)
1.Hosted Provider / PBXIAF
To assure performance. No NAT issues, and a fat pipe to the net. (The last thing we need is network contention at the PBX to sink the boat before she sails.) We chose Lylix – for being just excellent providers all around with our other PBX’s.
2.Video Support (Obviously)
Otherwise the screens on the phones are expensive places to stick postit notes.
3.Bells and Whistles – Features and Functions
The Nerdvittles Add-ons have spoiled me forever – Ill never again be content sitting in front of a telephone that can not read me the weather in Orem, Utah or Walla Walla Washington at the touch of a few buttons. All the creature comforts, like free 411, CID lookup, and proper handling of 911 calls. Allison chirping away for my custom prompts via Cepstral, and the surf-reports all need to be available to the users of TFPS (The Family Phone System.)
4.Conference Room(s)
For those long winded family discussions, and special occasions like birthdays, nothing beats an all hand-on-deck conference call. I don’t think Asterisk conference rooms support video yet, but the audio will still be great to have.
5.Voice Mail
Obvious, but important. It would be nice if Follow me could work also -
6.Web Access
To Voice Mail (ARI), and the Follow Me controls inside, and the ability to change voice mail to email settings.
7.Extension to extension calls free.
Each family unit gets a Video Phone, and can call all other family units 24 / 7 without Fees.
8.Web Based Account Management – Calls to and from the OutSide NOT Free
They need to be able to log into their A2Billing user interface – and use all the cool tools inside. They need to be able to see their call records, and most importantly to Pay their bills in an automated way. (Have you ever tried to rate calls and make bills by hand? It’s TERRIBLE. ) This becomes more important as they add DID’s to the system, and begin using it as regular telephone as well.
9.Apportioned Maintenance Fees
The system should include in its automatic billing a way to charge a percentage (in this case 20%) of the hosting fees (5 families) – so everyone contributes equally to the monthly hosting fees. (At lylix, this will be about $7.00 per family per month)
I secretly believe they will all begin asking about ways to use the system more, and I don’t want to be involved each time they pay their part of the phone bill. So the plan is to enable PayPal (I know, I know. I’m taking the easy way out here. At least I Hope I am.)
The Setup
I have hardware that is known good, and has run PBXIAF very nicely before. I don’t want to introduce any unknowns that I don’t have to. I’m sure there’s gonna be plenty of them to deal with anyways.
The first steps was be to get a “pristine platform” prepared. So did an absolutely new and standard install of PBXIAF 1.3. Then installed and updated all modules. Lylix is still loading FreePBX 2.4, (everything else is pure PBXIAF 1.3), So I went through the Upgrade to 2.5.x as well. When this is done, all modules are up to date, and update-scripts, update-fixes has been run.
The next step is to add the g729 codec if you have the license for it.
I install my Cepstral licenses and voices at the same time. And Swift.
Now is a good time to make that first full backup. By this time, you will have and hour or so – depending upon how fast your internet and CDROM drives are – into the project.
The next time I work on this project – I will be installing all the goodies that make life pleasurable – Weather Reports and all. In Fact, every feature that I want TFPS (Remember the acronyms, kids, The Family Phone System) users to have access to should be installed, and tested as working normally before any A2Billing installation steps should be undertaken. (Makes it way easier to trouble shoot things.)
Then it’s time for Trunks
Till Next time -