Asterisk Open Source Billing Systems

A2Billing, combined with Asterisk is a physical Telecom Platform and Soft-Switch providing a wide range of telecoms services using both traditional telephone technology or VoIP. It contains a real time billing engine which rates and bills and invoices calls, and supports payment gateways.

This now gives any Telecom company a very good reason to consider the A2Billing Platform over the traditional offerings for TDM and VoIP Soft-Switches as well as wholesale billing.

Solutions

A2Billing can be used in a number of different roles, and our consultancy services can advise on the appropriate hardware and configuration of your Switch.

  * Calling Card service with either PIN or Caller ID recognition
  * Call-back service
  * VoIP Billing
  * VoIP termination for IP PBX systems
  * Wholesale VoIP Termination and Origination
  * Residential VoIP Termination and Origination.
  * Special Applications Platforms
  * Predictive Dialler and Sales Campaign Tool
  * Hosted PBX, IP Centrex and Multi-tenant systems.    
  * VoIP reseller white label solutions.    
  * and much more :)

There is online demo available at http://demo.asterisk2billing.org/a2b/. For more information about any of the features and benfits of any of our products, please contact us at sales@star2billing.com, or go to www.a2billing.net, and www.star2billing.com

AstBill is not only a web-based, user friendly billing interface for Asterisk and VOIP. It is also a Asterisk configuration and GUI management tool and a standardized implementation of Asterisk using REALTIME and static configuration as you please. AstBill is Open Source and under constant development. Prepaid, Postpaid and Calling Cards supported.

Asterisell is a open source web application for
rating,
showing to customers,
and billing Asterisk VoIP calls.
EasyITSP an open source ITSP/Hosted PBX solution that sits on top of Digium's open source Asterisk PBX, has been released to the public. EasyITSP allows people with little experience to easily manage and run an ITSP and/or Hosted PBX services with its small footprint and its easy to use admin and customer portals. EasyITSP is quickly gaining ground in its market with constant development of new features. To learn more and view a demo, visit http://lemens-ts.com/easyitsp
Freeside is the open-source billing, ticketing and account administration package for Internet Service Providers that now includes support for VoIP CDR rating and billing. Freeside supports Asterisk and many other CDR formats.

Freeside Internet Services also offers installation, integration, configuration, migration, training, and customization services.

Flexible pricing and rating plans including anniversary billing, pro-rating, usage based billing and more. Plug-in system allows easy addition of new pricing plans. VoIP rating and billing, including DID inventory, rate plans, free minutes, caps, and 800# billing. Real-time credit card and electronic check processing with all major processing gateways. Email, fax, printed and online invoicing.
Complete, integrated trouble ticketing system included, based on Request Tracker from Best Practical Solutions Auto-responds to customer email, assigns a ticket number and allows your staff to track requests collaboratively Multiple queues, custom fields, templates, ticket associations, templates, customizable workflow, and more.
Online signup page with immediate credit card authorization and provisioning. Customer self-care including invoice viewing, one-time and recurring payments, adding and removing services, and password changes. Simple API available to write your own self-service pages or applications.
Unlimited resellers with branded invoices, individual pricing and payment gateways. Virtualized reseller access allows resellers access to only their own customers. Flexible, fine-grained access control
Features:
Provide call rating for Asterisk. Calling Cards Integrates with AMP (amp.coalescentsystems.ca) An "unlimited" amount of different price lists. Batch billing Realtime billing Rates are billed to 6 decimal places. Rates are highly configurable. Import rate lists in cvs format. Variable billing increments. Call setup charges. Resellers. Least Cost Routing Web interface provides: - Card balances. - Ability to configure routes. - Ability to configure most of ASTPP. - Setup Brands. - Many other features. Interface for customers to view their calls. GPLed Source Code Intregrated with OSCommerce!! CitrusDB is an open source customer care and billing solution that can be used in 
many different service industries, including internet service, consulting, webhosting, telecommunications, and voip.
customer details unlimited services create invoices credit cards batches support notes under GPL v2 open source license Asterisk Hotel Billing is a system to bill the calls of rooms in hotels. It's very easy to use. 
Supports more than 15000 phone destinations. You can create PDF with detailed list of the calls, at the
moment the customer leaves de room, then the system starts a new bill for the next customer.
The application is in Spanish.
Requirements:
Asterisk + SQL CDR (Mysql tested) Web server with PHP + PEAR DB SIP/IAX Room extensions (not Zap) Zap/SIP/IAX trunk lines Features of the Asterisk hotel management system include:
   * Rooms inventory management with bulk FreePBX extension import
   * Call management by prefix with per minute and fixed rates
   * Check-In and Check-Out with associated actions
   * Billing with search by dates and/or by rooms with call detail
   * Integrated with Hotel wake-up module with web interface
   * Removal of voicemails and wake-ups on room check-out

Requirements:

Tool to automatically assign calls to users of a shared line and spread their phone bill
works currently for German customers of the Deutsche Telekom (using "Rechnung Online"), other companies that provide online bills could easily be added automated billing and accounting comparison of alternative billing plans PHP-interface Tool to access and rate in real-time Call Details Records generated by SIP Express Router, MediaProxy, Asterisk and other RADIUS gateways. - by Adrian Georgescu. CDRTool provides real-time mediation including normalization and rating for Call Detail Records generated by SIP Proxies and VoIP gateways. Combined PSTN rating based on time/destination with NGN rating based on traffic/application provides the ideal billing platform.
astCDRview is an open source, licensed under GNU/GPL, lightweight, Web-based, multi-language Asterisk SQLite CDR viewer that supports multiple outgoing carriers, multiple incoming numbers, billing, an address book, and extensions
http://www.open-rate.com License: Dual Licensed GPL/Proprietary OpenRate is an open source, commercially supported, high performance batch and real time rating engine. For end users it is licensed under GNU/GPL, for systems integrators and resellers the proprietary license allows white-labelling or re-branding.
Can support virtually any rating scheme using a pipeline configuration of standard modules. Extendible and highly flexible.
SQLBill is a Radius billing engine for the GNU Gatekeeper (GnuGk). It supports Radius or can be used directly on top of Postresql. It is a reliably backend system, but lacks a pretty frontend.
VOIP Billing - A large list of providers including both open-source and commerical billing solutions Open Source VOIP Software - Open-source software for VoIP, not necessarily billing-related

Asterisk embedded systems

History
Backlinks...AsteriskAsterisk tips and tricksAsterisk hardware recommend...Asterisk setup minimumAsterisk Install CDROMRolePlayingTwoPhonesTwoRooms
There is a lot of interest in running Asterisk on "embedded" plattforms like the Linksys NSLU2. 2010-11-01 Nicherons: ipPbx08 & SPoGSM now support BLF (Busy Lamp Field) to show on a phone who is talking on other phones 2010-07-17 Nicherons: ipPbx08 & SPoGSM are the latest development of embedded Asterisk ip PBX phone systems 2010-06-03 - DM Link releases their first IP PBX. 2010-04-15 http://code.google.com/p/omapterisk/.Omapterisk Asterisk port for OMAP ,that could run in Beagleboard or Hawkboard. 2009-12-21-http://www.plugpbx.org/ Project Starts. Run Asterisk and FreePBX on a SD card on the SheevaPlug Embedded Arm computer. Flash and go! Open source! 2009-12-09-IP01 has the power to run 32 concurrent calls and size of an ATA at $135. 2009-08-14-Xenia Labs Sucessfully test drives the Positron Telecom embedded Asterisk PCI card. 2009-06-16-Uni-Ta New firmware of embedded Asterisk system S800 based on Blackfin is available. 2009-06-10-FIVN releases simple Asterisk GUI version 1.6 for embedded systems. 2009-01-14-IP BRI Atcom's latest PBX with four BRI TE (line) interfaces. Powerful Blackfin BF537 600Mhz DSP provide all the power needed for a production PBX. 2009-01-14-BR4-APPLIANCE (IPBRI) , Astfin powered quad BRI Asterisk appliance. 2008-12-30 uCpbx releases PR1-Appliance based on Blackfin / Astfin. More 2008-10-28 OpenVox IX100 IPPBX kit, the award winning product, is designed for small and embedded asterisk systems and it's the first one that combines analog mini pci card with ISDN bri card in a little box. More 2008-05-21 The Asterisk Orgasmatron: A $199 Turnkey PBX Install in Under 15 Minutes Part I Part II 2008-05-08- ATCOMrealeases first 8 ports asterisk embedded IPPBX : IP08 2008-04-15-Soundwin releases modular 2/4 ports Asterisk embedded IPPBX: IPX200/400 on Blackfin. BRI Appliance (April 2008), New improved version of embedded Asterisk on a Blackfin processor with a Quad BRI interface. All hardware designs open. 2008-02-28 - Bicom Systems launches officeBOX, solid state, fan less IP-PBX appliance Older News http://www.plugpbx.org Download pre-built SD card images to run FreePBX/Asterisk based on Debian Squeeze via the ARM SheevaPlug embedded computer. Ease of use core focus and building a collaborative community. Come run FreePBX on a 3 watt computer with plenty of power that's entirely open and easy to hack. $99 USD device. http://code.google.com/p/omapterisk/.Prebuilt Root FS for Omapterisk -Asterisk port for OMAP ,that could run in Beagleboard or Hawkboard. Uni-Ta embedded Asterisk IP PBX S800 with commercialized GUI, based on Blackfin. 1~8 analog ports. VoIPtel: On CeBIT'08 we launched VoIPtelGUI for Atcom's IP04, now we are responsible for the VoIPtel CE and SE Firmware for their entire line of PBX's. Don't forget to visit our Forum and Blog. PBX in a Flash - We've tried to collect in one place everything you will need to create your own PBX in a Flash system in under an hour! ATCOM:Asterisk based on Blackfin chipset, uClinux: IP04 IP08 AstBoxLinux small linux with "Bristuffed" Asterisk, Zaptel, Libpri, zaphfc and development tools for CF, USB sticks and Flash disks Astfin Asterisk for Blackfin based devices, uClinux, support for open source hardware (fxo, fxs, bri, pri) AstLinux Customized version of Linux designed to run from compact flash or small Hard drive. Magiclink Asterisk Appliance: Blackfin embedded Asterisk hardware with 8 ports FXS/FXO released. VoIPBox: For WRAP, Live CD, PXE Image, with web GUI in German and English. Planned: USB stick, Via EPIA Asterisk hardware Soekris running Asterisk on Soekris hardware. Asterisk hardware Gumstix Running Asterisk on Gumstix (World's Smallest VoIP PBX) MetrixCommunication:Company that offers a complete soekris/asterisk kit, and offers customer support for configuration as well Asterisk fli4l: OPT package for the router-on-a-diskette fli4 Limey Linux: A custom CF Asterisk/Linux Distribution. Fits on a 128MB or 512MB compact flash card. Optimized for VIA Mini-ITX boards with 512MB of DDR RAM. Recently upgraded to use the 2.6 kernel and Asterisk 1.4. Allows Asterisk, Libpri, and Zaptel to be compiled on the target system. Pebble Linux: CF Linux distribribution - no longer supported. It has been superseded by Pyramid Linux. Phone systems - A comprehensive guide to phone systems Pyramid Linux: Linux distribution focused on embedded wireless networking applications Embedded Asterisk: Step by step guide for installing an embedded * system using Debian, CF, i586 Build your own Asterisk hardware based on the Free Telephony Project (Aug 2006) IP04 Open Hardware IP-PBX: An open (free as in speech) four port IP-PBX design that can be built for around $100 and will retail for around $400. Asterisk Management GUI for OpenWrt, Unslung and DD-WRT firmwares AskoziaPBX, ~10MB image, * 1.4, FreeBSD 2.6, derived from monowall, images for soekris, wrap, standard pc, vmware HP Thin Client Run Asterisk and/or OpenSER on a solid state HP Thin Client using a standard Debian install.
Go back to Asterisk

Promotion of VoIP Business Telephone Solutions by Toshiba America Information Systems

As it is described in the last press release, Toshiba America Information Systems Inc., Telecommunication System Division, and LEAF Financial Corporation (LEAF), the commercial finance subsidiary of Resource America Inc. have initiated a vendor finance program agreement to foster the customer financing and leasing requirements of the Authorized Toshiba Dealer Network.

The Program will be named as Toshiba Telecom Finance, in order to be the tool for authorized Toshiba Dealers to provide comprehensive lease finance offering, targeted to make Toshiba VoIP business telephone solutions more available to their small to medium business customer pool. "We are very excited to work with LEAF Financial to provide our customers with flexible financing solutions from an industry leader in the small and middle-market telephony leasing space,” said Larry Meyer, vice president of Sales and Marketing of Toshiba America Information Systems for the Telecommunication Systems Division. “We are committed to providing the Authorized Toshiba Dealer Network with innovative products and programs that will assist them in maximizing their telecom sales efforts." "We are pleased that Toshiba selected LEAF to provide financial services to Authorized Toshiba Dealers and their customers and to support Toshiba Telecom Finance," said Crit DeMent, CEO of LEAF, in a press release. "As companies invest in leading-edge communication solutions to stay competitive, Toshiba Telecom Finance will help them achieve those goals with affordable financing solutions. LEAF's highly responsive service and support capabilities will make it extremely convenient for the Authorized Toshiba Dealer Network to utilize lease financing as a powerful closing tool." LEAF Financial Corporation is headquartered in Philadelphia, Penn., being the commercial finance and asset management company. Its business model is designed to emit small to middle sized equipment leases and loans in a variety of asset ranging through specialized strategic business units. After origination of the leases, LEAF operates these leases for its own account, institutions, and individual investors by means of investment partnerships and other different forms of investment.

SOHO DECT Systems

DECT Solutions for your SOHO Environment

So after reading my first two posts on DECT technology and how to design a DECT system, you are now ready to move forward with a solution that fully meets your needs from a hardware perspective. There are a few solutions that are viable to meet your needs with more on the brink. Since DECT phones are becoming more popular by the minute in the VoIP industry, we are seeing manufacturers entering this market and delivering robust cordless solutions that can meet the needs of any SOHO application. Below, we will detail a few of these solutions.

The first solution is actually a new solution and actually a new “player” in the SIP DECT world. Panasonic who is well known for their analog cordless handsets which are very popular in your large retail chain stores such as Best Buy, Target, or Wal Mart have introduced 2 cordless SIP DECT Solutions to the market. The first solution is the KX-TGP550 which is a corded desk IP phone that ships with 1 additional DECT handset which pairs to the base phone. If you are familiar with the Aastra CT solutions, this is very similar EXCEPT, the KX-TGP550 can supply up to 6 additional KX-TPA50 DECT handsets and EACH handset can be allocated as its own individual unique SIP extension unlike the Astra solution that only allows 4 handsets and each handset inherits Line1 configuration of the base phone. Here is a good look at how the KX-TGP550 and KX-TPA50 handsets function.

The solution allows for 8 individual SIP extensions but SIP extensions may also be shared between each handset and/or base unit. A good look at how this is configured via the web GUI interface is below:

The KX-TGP550 base phone can also act as BLF/Speed dial application as it contains 6 keys which are each dedicated to a unique handset paired to it. Receptionists can use these buttons to see if the person is on a call or available to take a call and even press that users handset button to speed dial them. They can also press a “ALL” button which essentially calls every handset on the DECT network.  A good look at how this is setup and displayed is below:

The next solution offered by Panasonic in the SIP DECT world is the KX-TPG500 which offers a DECT base station that physically connects to your LAN network via cat5 and transmits DECT signal as well handles the SIP registration between the paired DECT KX-TPA50 handsets and the SIP Call server or provider. The KX-TPG500 ships with a single base station and handset. It can support a total of 6 DECT KX-TPA50 handsets and 8 SIP registrations. Here is a good look at how this solution is setup:

Both solutions are viable for SOHO applications and can completely transform your home or small office into an entire cordless mobile phone system. The only downside to these solutions is that there are currently no DECT repeaters available to extend DECT signaling to greater ranges.

The next DECT SOHO solution is manufactured by Snom and has been around for quite some time. The Snom DECT solution is called the Snom M3 . The M3 ships with a DECT base station that transmits DECT signal and also handles SIP registration between the 8 additional M3 handsets that can be paired to it. It ships with 1 handset and each handset can be programmed with its own unique SIP extension. The base can handle 3 concurrent calls at any time and unlike most DECT solutions, the M3 DECT solutions offers DECT repeater options that can be spread out within the main base’s DECT frequency to offer a greater range of DECT signal coverage. The base can support up to 6 additional DECT repeaters which can be purchased separately. Below is a good example of the Snom M3 solution and how the DECT repeaters offer greater signal coverage.

Each Snom handset supports a speakerphone option, 2.5mm headset jack, customizable ring/vibrate options, color LCD, out of range notification, low battery notification, and ships with its own desktop charger.

Aastra also offers a SIP DECT Solution called the MBU-400. The MBU-400 ships with a single MBU-400 DECT base station that broadcasts DECT frequency and handles 8 unique SIP registrations between each paired Aastra DECT 420d handset. The MBU-400 ships with 1 420d handset and can handle up to 8 total 420d handsets which can be purchased separately. The base is unique to other DECT solutions because it can handle 4 concurrent calls, 3 VoIP over the LAN connection, and 1 PSTN via its FXO port. This is also useful in cases where your network may go down. The FXO port is also utilized as a lifeline and calls are automatically routed over to the FXO port if the base loses its SIP registration or network connectivity.

Each 420d handset offers a speakerphone, 2.5mm headset jack, ring and vibrate options, out of range indications, low battery indications, ships with its own desktop charger, color LCD, distinctive ringing, customizable phonebook, and over the air updates. The downside to the Aastra MBU-400 is it doesn’t offer any DECT repeater option.

And last but not least, we have Siemens Gigaset which offers 2 SOHO SIP DECT solutions, the A580IP and S675IP. Pictured below the A580 IP ships with (1) A58H DECT handset and 1 DECT base station that interfaces with your LAN network. The base can support up to 6 total Siemens Gigaset DECT handsets and Siemens provides a few different models linked and pictured below. All handsets support Wideband voice quality through HDSP technology which is a feature that sets this solution apart from any of the DECT solutions talked about previously.

Additional Handsets that are supported on the A580 IP solution and can be mixed and matched include the following:

The second SOHO DECT solution offered by Siemens Gigaset is the S675 IP. The S675 IP solution ships with 1 S67H DECT handset and like the previous solution can support up to 6 total DECT handsets paired to the S675 IP base unit. The base unit contains a single LAN port to connect to your network as well as 1 FXO port to connect to your local land line. It supports 3 concurrent calls, 2 VOIP and 1 through the FXO port via PSTN. This is also used for failover. Below is a picture of the S675 IP and a listing of its supported HDSP DECT handsets.

Additional Handsets that are supported on the A580 IP solution and can be mixed and matched include the following:

And that about does it for SOHO IP DECT solutions. Stay tuned for my nest post which will describe a few enterprise level DECT solutions.