What is really so hard since there are more than 100 VoIP prepaid billing
software packages?
And every single one of them is either dramaticly overcomplicated or only works with very specific gateway's.
Just think about it. What would you rather have:
Gateway ----> Radius server ----> Database
or
Gateway ----> Database
The correct picture is:
VoIP gateway <---> standart interface <---> Database
YOU NEED AN INTERFACE to "speak" with the database.
What does a database mean? DBM, MS-SQL, Oracle, flat text files, DBase, FOXpro? Where is the intermediator???
There is ZERO need. The gateway manufactures were lazy and decided to implement a broken technology that should have never been deployed. All that RADIUS does is add another layer of failure and complicate the network.
This is the whole VHS and Beta issue again... Beta was a superior technology but VHS was marketed more successfully.
You have to have a STANDART that speak ALL THE LANGUAGES.Um no... Your starting to sound like Mr. Borg Gatus now.
I know for an absolute fact my network is never going to need MS-SQL or Oracle, so why have all of that extra crap just laying around?
Well, such a standart is Radius. Do you have a better UNIVERSAL/STANDART proposition?RADIUS is a hack. It is absolutely NOT a standard or universal. (Are you mad?) Every single manufacture out there has their own very specific VSAs that you have to rely on being absolutely perfect if you are going to perfectly bill your customers. (Especially for a usage based service) We spent countless money trying to beat up Cisco and Qunitum to fix their VSAs but (of course) they won't admit there is even a problem, so we dropped them and did everything the right way.
Our 'device' (i'm not gonna call it a gateway, because it is not just a gateway) can either have a database inside of it and replicate data to a master database or it can talk directly to a centralized database. Not to mention it can do all of the IVRs, call routing and custom applications that a 5300 can't even dream of doing.
http://www.asterisk.org plus our custom billing additions is all we will ever need.
Jeremy McNamara
------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Etnus, makers of TotalView, The best thread debugger on the planet. Designed with thread debugging features you've never dreamed of, try TotalView 6 free at www.etnus.com. _______________________________________________ List: Openh323gk-users@lists.sourceforge.net Archive: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=8549 Homepage: http://www.gnugk.org/
