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Disable Outbound Access

Posted by mattdarnell on Thu, 08/27/2009

Is there an easy way to disable outbound access?

The only way I know how is to fool with their outbound routes so the calls fail and then fix the routes when I want to turn it back on.

-Matt


Submitted by eeman on Thu, 08/27/2009 Permalink

you can go into tenant management and set the tenant to inactive/disabled. then they cant dial out. You could also make all your routes restricted and make all the extensions unable to dial restricted routes.

Submitted by mattdarnell on Thu, 08/27/2009 Permalink

I will check out the restriction of the route.

The way we collect back payments is we cut off outbound access for a week before we disable the tenant. That way they get a very strong poke but the issue is hidden to their customers.

-Matt

Submitted by moshe on Wed, 09/09/2009 Permalink

maybe this should be posted at features wanted section

is there a way to setup a trunk which should announce that your call is being disconnected due to none payment, or to take it even further to give the option to be redirected to the provider payment department,

and all you need to do is go in to the tenant outbound routes and select all routes (OK maybe not 911) and assign all to that trunk, when he pays just change it back, it is definitely easier then changing all routes to restricted and then make all extensions disallow restricted, it does not totally cut off his income and outgoing as when you disable/deactivate the tenant

any thoughts how this could be done

Submitted by raven on Wed, 09/09/2009 Permalink

If you had an external asterisk, you could have it reroute everything back to the pbx and a voicemail box. I don't know if that's less work than changing the routes, but seems like you could just build a simple single tenant with plain asterisk or maybe even asteriskNOW for that purpose for not much money.

Submitted by raven on Thu, 09/10/2009 Permalink

While I'm not even a novice on SER (SIP express router), things I've read on it seem to indicate that it could route a SIP call like described above, and maybe that's all you would need on an external box to get the call back to a vmbox on the pbx.

Submitted by eeman on Thu, 09/10/2009 Permalink

dont be such a puss.. lol.

If you don't pay your electric bill 15days after the due date what happens? Think they give a shit if you already pay them $10,000/mo? We went on generator one day a year ago because we disputed a $280 charge out of a $8000 electric bill and they came and pulled the meter off our building. To re-activate they make you pay a security deposit and re-connect fee.

If you don't pay your water bill within a few days of its due date they turn off your water (major health concern with this one). To reactivate they charge a re-activation fee.

If you don't pay a copper lanline bill for phone service 30days later they fix it so you can only call 911 (however most voip companies already have 911 disclaimers that say if your service gets shut off for non-payment or you lose your internet connection, you will NOT receive 911 service). There is a re-connect fee for this service.

If you don't pay your cell phone bill after 30 days they shut off your cell phone service and you can only use it for emergency calls. There is a re-connect fee to return service.

If your employer has not paid your health insurance bill then your pending medical claims will not pay for any date of service proceeding the last paid-to date. Eventually your doctor will turn you over to a collection company and tarnish your credit until you _persuade_ your boss to pay their bills.

If you don't pay your cable bill after 30 days they turn off your service until you call in and make payment.

Are you starting to detect a theme here? You have THE MOST powerful method of getting people to pay their bills compared to a lot of other service industries (email, web hosting, internet bandwidth). Phone numbers are mission critical. If they don't pay their bill by the due date and you send a late payment invoice stating they will be shut off on X date unless payment is received... here's a thought. Shut them off and charge a re-connection fee. 99.99999% of the time you'll have payment within 20min of them discovering they have no service. You don't need to invent some obscure way of nagging and begging someone to pay you for a VITAL service you provide them. Another bit of fact. If their account is inactive (like say for non-payment) they are not legally allowed to LNP that number away. The number must be active and in good standing otherwise losing carrier can claim the number does not belong to that customer. I know because we've had some incoming ports for customers that canceled their service before the LNP was complete (patec was losing carrier) and they permanently lost their numbers.

but hey, if someone's too afraid of that confrontation then having to manually move all their routes manually seems like appropriate karma for being scared of doing what everyone buying service to expect to happen anyway. Its like what 3 - 4 routes tops, unless you have a LOT of customers not paying their bill timely and no software is going to solve your issue. You need to sound off like you have a pair in that circumstance.

Submitted by dozment on Mon, 09/14/2009 Permalink

I was thinking of doing the same kind of thing where their calls get routed to a message and then back to our billing number. That is, until I read Erik's reply! Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!