P-src-ip (for Betamax users)

[Aaron]

If so, why am I getting charged for FUP exceeded while I am not charged when connected directly and presenting the same IP address (I guess)? Any idea?

No ideas sorry. I'm in the same boat as anybody else when guessing how the Betamax FUP works.

Regards,

Aaron

[tricky1]

It would be possible, although it would make the SwitchCall command have yet another option, however I can't think of a specific need to allow customisation of that header?

Aaron

Dear Aaron

I am one of the many unhappy users of Betamax because they have quite a number of blacklisted IP-ranges.

Quite often my internet provider gives me such blocked IPs and on those days I can not even make any paid calls

And as you know Betamax has no customer service so emailing them was of no avail.

If those 120 free days with 40 minutes per day totalling 4800 minutes would not add up to max. 48€ of free talks per 10€ paid I would have sent them to hell, but that indeed is an unbeatable possibility....
if it ever works

As far as I know other sip switches also give some possiblilty to configure the p-src-ip data.

And anyhow, it is an illogical and unfair policy of Betamax to request a fixed IP, because limitation by user account is already sufficient to protect them against fraud.

[satphoneguy]

And anyhow, it is an illogical and unfair policy of Betamax to request a fixed IP, because limitation by user account is already sufficient to protect them against fraud.

how would this prevent users from opening multiple accounts?

[tricky1]

And anyhow, it is an illogical and unfair policy of Betamax to request a fixed IP, because limitation by user account is already sufficient to protect them against fraud.

how would this prevent users from opening multiple accounts?

if a user has several accounts and on each of them he had paid 10€ in order to get paid plus some free calls, why should he not be entitled to use also those free minutes??

(why does betamax not like it? -> because it is a lure, and this is in violation of german consumer laws.

[satphoneguy]

And anyhow, it is an illogical and unfair policy of Betamax to request a fixed IP, because limitation by user account is already sufficient to protect them against fraud.

how would this prevent users from opening multiple accounts?

if a user has several accounts and on each of them he had paid 10€ in order to get paid plus some free calls, why should he not be entitled to use also those free minutes??

(why does betamax not like it? -> because it is a lure, and this is in violation of german consumer laws.

the betamax FUP clearly limits the offer to 1 account per person and/or IP address. i am pretty sure that they do not make any profit from customers who hit the 300 minute limit each week but do not go over. call centers, etc. could open say 50 accounts and hit exactly 300 minute on each; i am sure betamax would than be losing lots on mony. it would be exasperated if the calls were to on of the location that is more expensive to terminate such south africa or turkey but included in the FUP. opening more than one account is considered fraud by betamax and is in violation of the terms you agree to when signing up.

[tricky1]

@satphoneguy

> the betamax FUP clearly limits the offer to 1 account
> per person and/or IP address.

this is against german consumer law (Lockvogelangebot).

> i am pretty sure that they do not make any
> profit from customers who hit the 300 minute limit each week

that's why it IS an illegal offer violating german law.

i also think they do not make any profit but this is their own problem.

[em]

If so, why am I getting charged for FUP exceeded while I am not charged when connected directly and presenting the same IP address (I guess)? Any idea?

No ideas sorry. I'm in the same boat as anybody else when guessing how the Betamax FUP works.
Aaron

Here is another data point: if I forward the call from my UA through MySIPSwitch chained to Voxalot and from there to VoipDiscount, the FUP exceeded charges are charged. If the call goes directly from my UA to Voxalot and then VoipDiscount, they are not. The only difference is Voxalot's P-src-ip header, which in the first case points to MySIPSwitch's IP address rather than my UA's. To see what Voxalot sends, I temporarily pointed it to a test server under my control rather than to VoipDiscount. During the establishment and the termination of a session, the only place where sip.mysipswitch.com's IP address is quotes is as parameter of the P-src-ip header in the SIP INVITE. Here it that packet's structure, with the IP addresses manually replaced by their domain names for ease of reading:

Code: Select all

INVITE sip:3002@testserver SIP/2.0
Via: SIP/2.0/UDP eu.voxalot.com:5061;branch=z9hG4bK05ed7c5c;rport
From: "540407" <sip:anon@testserver>;tag=as6122c657
To: <sip:3002@testserver >
Contact: <sip:anon@eu.voxalot.com:5061>
Call-ID: 709bdc42441fb995175925b5732f33f5@testserver
CSeq: 102 INVITE
User-Agent: voxaLot
Max-Forwards: 70
Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 09:31:17 GMT
Allow: INVITE, ACK, CANCEL, OPTIONS, BYE, REFER, SUBSCRIBE, NOTIFY
P-src-ip: sip.mysipswitch.com
Content-Type: application/sdp
Content-Length: 389

In my opinion, the Betamax services check both peer's IP address and content of the P-src-ip header, and increment the minutes counters for both of them. If one of them exceeds the FUP limit, charges are applied. However, Voxalot seems to have gained an exemption from Betamax, so in their case only the P-src-ip header is considered. Perhaps, MySIPSwitch could try to talk to Betamax and ask for a similar treatment, on the grounds that like Voxalot it's a forwarding service and follows exactly the same practice of reporting the caller's IP address in the P-src-ip header.

[Aaron]

Perhaps, MySIPSwitch could try to talk to Betamax and ask for a similar treatment, on the grounds that like Voxalot it's a forwarding service and follows exactly the same practice of reporting the caller's IP address in the P-src-ip header.

We (or more correctly I) did try and contact Betamax, there is a whole separate thread detailing the efforts. I even emailed voxalot asking how they did it but there was no response from anyone.

Possibly if this was persisted with we'd get somewhere but currently there are only two of us running the sipswitch and both have day jobs. We run the sipswitch for fun and while we like helping out where we can chasing Betamax is not really in the fun category.

We'd be happy to create a @mysipswitch.com email address for anyone that wants to try chasing Betamax again but I'm not volunteering .

Regards,

Aaron

[em]

We (or more correctly I) did try and contact Betamax, there is a whole separate thread detailing the efforts. I even emailed voxalot asking how they did it but there was no response from anyone.

Well, it's to be expected that Voxalot remain coy about this point, also because they run a business (selling premium accounts with additional features, such as the third-party registrations that are free in MySIPSwitch). But this post does shed some light on how they do it: the "setting an IP address" is probably done through the P-src-ip header (there's no other place in their packets...)

Possibly if this was persisted with we'd get somewhere but currently there are only two of us running the sipswitch and both have day jobs. We run the sipswitch for fun and while we like helping out where we can chasing Betamax is not really in the fun category.

I agree: Betamax is definitely one of the most unresponsive companies I've ever seen...

[tricky1]

Aaron,

i know that others do store the ip of the very 1st login of their users and afterwards always send p-src-ip with this _numeric_ value.

this is easy to implement and most probably will automagically work for sipswitch

when using sipswitch results in loss of free calls at betamax your service is not attractive for most clients of betamax.