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--- RE: What is the Deal With Betamax -- Are they Still Blocking US? (http://www1.pbxes.com/forum/threadid.php?threadid=1850)

What is the Deal With Betamax -- Are they Still Blocking US?

I'm thinking of resigning up for a Betmax account because of its rates to a UK Mobiles (e.g. not part of its all you can eat stuff). Am I going to run into trouble with them connecting from a PBX account?

The only issue with Betamax and PBXES is that you will see (FUP exceeded) a lot more.

Voipcheap used to be my primary termination service, but I can no longer count on it since Betamax is not very serious about applying its own rules.

Pasquale

The FUP issue can only be resolved from Betamax

Regarding the FUP issue, Betamax seems to be unresponsive to our requests for resolution of the issue.

Below is the particular thread in their forums, where I have tried to quantify the issue in relation with PBXes.

https://forum.voipbuster.com/viewtopic.php?p=58645

Some gentle or not so gentle reminders on the above thread, might get them to put it on top of their priorities.

I am using voicetrading also betamax. This lets me set any caller id.

I also you internetcalls with pbxes.

If it works it works but don't expect much customer response from betamax. In the beginning I had a problem with voicetrading a still got an answer but nowdays even as voicetrading customer no answer, just standar reply it has been sent to the technical center.

Tried Out This Solution Yet?

On the mentioned thread, there's the link to
http://www.mysipswitch.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=227 which shows how other parties have solved the FUP issue, which was by simply adding an additional header line to their communication packets with BetaMax servers.

Has PBXES tried this out yet?

I was just thinking that BetaMax might just not get back to you guys, knowing that the solution is already known to you anyways. Or what do you think?
I'd appreciate very much if you could consider to at least try this method. In the past, I often wondered why my free minutes were gone that fast. And I would love to have them all available, even by using PBXES and even if they never get back to you with an answer.
Regards from Wisconsin!

Not as easy as you think

If you follow all the threads mentioned in the Betamax thread https://forum.voipbuster.com/viewtopic.php?p=58645 (their forum became publicly viewable today) you will notice that any solution will have to involve the help of Betamax's engineers.

This is especially evident in the Voxalot thread which demonstrates their efforts to get it right, since even if the "P-src-ip" header is inserted in the SIP packets, it will have to be recognized (parsed) by their SIP Proxies, so they can individualize the calls from every user, even if they originate from the same PBXes IP.

So it is not as simple as it seems. For the proper implementation of the proposed solution the full support of Betamax's engineers is an absolute requirement.

The way you can help towards this goal, is for all users of Betamax clones to register and post in the above mentioned forum, so our request remains high in their priorities. The number of Betamax trunks mentioned in my post, was the actual number registered across all PBXes servers, on the day I posted my request in their forum.

As you can clearly see the issue remains unresolved, since no Betamax engineer has contacted Pascal so far, to discuss and resolve the widely reported issue. As such it is now up to every affected PBXes and Betamax user to contact Betamax through that thread in their forum, and ask for their cooperation to resolve the issue with Pascal.

If it important to you please report it, so it can hopefully be resolved soon.

I have just posted on VoipBuster's Forum and I sent a message at the VoiceTrading Contact Form. PLEASE - Anyone who reads this, do the same!

At the same time, stupid as I am, I still don't quit understand why the people at mysipswitch (at the link I posted before) were able to implement the voxalot solution WITHOUT Bettamaxes intervention and PBXES can't. Seems to me that BettaMax and Voxalot worked together indeed, but the result seems to be something that doesn't only work for Voxalot, but also for Mysipswitch. As they mention on their forum, it seems to be an universal header, not one that is dependant of any proxies. But who am I to try understanding this and make you try anything anyways.

Well, please let me know if I can do anything else to get the issue resolved.

Again, not as easy as you think

Thanks for your post on the Betamax forum. That is exactly what is needed to get this issue resolved.

Regarding your comment: "Seems to me that BettaMax and Voxalot worked together indeed, but the result seems to be something that doesn't only work for Voxalot, but also for Mysipswitch. As they mention on their forum, it seems to be an universal header, not one that is dependant of any proxies. But who am I to try understanding this and make you try anything anyways."

If you look at the 7th and 8th posts in the 3rd page of the MySIPSwitch forum at www.mysipswitch.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=227&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=20 you will find the following comment from em:

Zitat:

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.

To which Aaron's reply was:

Zitat:

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.

As you can clearly see, their issue was not resolved to their satisfaction, even after they inserted the "P-src-ip" header in all their SIP packets. The above comments indicate that in order for the issue to be resolved, Betamax and PBXes will have to come to a formal agreement, and implement the required changes in the proper manner. That is exactly the reason I started the process back in the middle of November 2007.

It's locked. Again.

Well, Betamax true to their tradition of changing like the wind, has locked down their forum again. It is only available by logging into it using your trunk credentials.

But even if it is not publicly viewable, the Betamax & PBXes thread is still there waiting for your comments at https://forum.voipbuster.com/viewtopic.php?p=58645

You 've got to love these people. Never a dull moment.

this is an answer I got from a mod regarding the betamax pbxes issue

Hi bobmats,

i give a similar service to my own customers like pbxes do. And none of my customers are having problems with freedays use. The only thing that Pbxes has to do is find a software solution that passes the real ip to betamax no need to contact betamax itself for this. I have at the moment nearly 300 users on my voippbx server. All are using their free minutes that are available through sip.

kind regards

https://forum.voipbuster.com//viewtopic.php?f=5&t=14738&p=61795&hilit=pbxes#p61795

according to him pbxes can resolve this without the help of betamax.

It remains to be seen...

Thanks a lot for the update. I have replied to the thread in question, and asked for his insight. If he is able to provide us with the elusive (so far) solution I will believe his claim. Until then, I will reserve judgment.

Having said that, I should also mention the P-src-ip header was added in one account for testing, but did not resolve the issue. Betamax must be validating both the peer's IP address and the content of the P-src-ip header, as it was suspected in the MySIPSwitch forum.

So we are looking for an exception similar to Voxalot's, where only the P-src-ip header is considered in calculating the FUP.

I strongly believe that only our perseverance will resolve this issue. So keep posting in the appropriate thread of the Betamax forum.

Update on the P-src-ip header

As of today, the P-src-ip header is present across all of the PBXes servers, for every trunk irrespective of provider.

So whatever PBXes could do to indicate the unique IP of a SIP User Agent to any trunk used for an outgoing call, including all of Betamax's SIP Proxies, has been implemented across all the servers.

As a result of this change, it is now completely up to Betamax to revise their FUP calculation, not to include the peer's IP as well as the P-src-ip header in it. PBXes is looking for an exception from Betamax similar to Voxalot's, for which the FUP calculation is solely based on the P-src-ip header.

This information, was also posted in the relevant Betamax thread, in which everyone who is affected by the FUP usage should post a message, if we want the FUP calculation to change vis-a-vis the PBXes servers.

thanks for the info. I just looked at my online account at internetcalls and can still see fup exceded.

Does this allready work or is it up to betamax now to make it work.

As a result of this change, it is now completely up to Betamax to revise their FUP calculation, not to include the peer's IP as well as the P-src-ip header in it. PBXes is looking for an exception from Betamax similar to Voxalot's, for which the FUP calculation is solely based on the P-src-ip header.

RE: What is the Deal With Betamax -- Are they Still Blocking US?

It seems Finarea is ignoring "P-src-ip" sometimes also on Voxalot (where it had worked a while) since end of February 2008.

So at the moment "FUP exceeded" messages cannot be avoided completely (except by hooking phones directly to Finarea's SIP servers?).