Comments on: Free Asterisk Calls to Zillions of Phones with ENUM and Gizmo5’s Backdoor Dialing

By: taylormia

taylormia — Sat, 23 May 2009 21:13:13 +0000

Gizmo5’s Backdoor dialing has been discontinued as of March 5, 2009….

http://support.gizmo5.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=425

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:24:57 +0000

Two minor corrections.
First, I am reasonably certain that one can utilize backdoor dialing on Gizmo WITHOUT first purchasing any outbound minutes. A Gizmo account without the purchase of minutes allows calls to other Gizmo numbers and to backdoor numbers.
Second, the check that one can perform on the Gizmo5 website to determine if a number is eligible for backdoor dialing is not entirely accurate. By way of example, my cellphone number can be reached with backdoor dialing, but the website says it cannot. This is because it is a Verizon number ported to Sprint. In my part of the country, Sprint works for backdoor dialing, Verizon does not. Because my Verizon number has been ported to Sprint, the system is smart enough to put the call through. But, the lookup facility on the website apparently looks at the area code and first 3 digits and assumes the number is Verizon and says it doesn’t work.

By: ewb

ewb — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:13:40 +0000

So in relation to the last comment I made, if one never calls a number that would cost any Gizmo CallOut minutes (say for a backdoor-dialing only trunk) then is it possible to have a $0.00 balance with Gizmo and things still work for dialing that 0101+NXXXXXX line? Also, is anyone working on code that would remember if the the number is backdoor-dialing enabled? It so happens that the three numbers I call the most are backdoor-dialing enabled. It would be beneficial to not have to lookup those numbers more than the first time. [WM: Read Part II of the article for "the code that would remember if the number is backdoor-dialing enabled." As for access to Backdoor Dialing, there have been conflicting reports, but most suggest that you need a positive balance in your account to use it.]

By: ewb

ewb — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 02:31:42 +0000

I am not completely understanding the need to have the $10 of CallOut minutes. If the Gizmo5 client can dial the number and connect for free, why would this not work in the Asterisk configuration as well?

[WM: Asterisk lacks the interconnects to the cellphone providers’ systems to provide SIP connections directly.]

By: Stephen

Stephen — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 23:15:28 +0000

I followed the steps to a T and i’m able to dial out and get inbound calls. But the only way i’m getting inbound calls routed correctly is using a ‘Any’ inbound route. I want to use my gizmo DID to route to a special app. Any ideas why the system wont recognize the DID?

By: ward

ward — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 17:55:33 +0000

For $4 a year, you can even adjust the outbound CallerID on your Gizmo5 calls. Here's the link.

By: Fox

Fox — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 17:00:22 +0000

Just wanted to comment that your trunk dialing rules are unnecessarily complicated, and most of them don’t actually do anything (you might be confusing route dialing rules with trunk dialing rules – on a trunk, a dialing rule is generally useless unless it contains a modification character such as a | or +). This is what I use to handle "backboor dialing" and Gizmo5 calls:

1+747XXXXXXX
010+1XXXXXXXXXX
0101+XXXXXXXXXX
0101npa+XXXXXXX
(Replace npa with your local area code if you want to allow 7-digit dialing of "backdoor dialing" calls within your area code).

In my ROUTE dialing rules I actually include frequently called numbers (in 7, 10, and 11 digit format) of numbers that I know for sure can be reached via "backdoor dialing", such as cell phone numbers of family and friends, so that even if someone dials the number and forgets to use the 0101 prefix, Asterisk will prepend it (because of my trunk rules) and send it out via Gizmo5. But you have to be careful who you use it with, becuase Gizmo5 plays an announcement at the start of each call: "This is a free call from anywhere in the world using Gizmo5." Probably not something you want to use with anyone who doesn’t realize that you’re using Gizmo5 and would not wait around through that short recorded message.

I only wish that Gizmo5 would set up some easy way for us to do a data dip and see if a call is eligible for "backdoor dialing." For example, if you could call http://someaddress.gizmo5.com/number_to_query and it would return the number prefixed with 0101 if a valid "backdoor dialing" number, or just the bare number if not, that would be really helpful.

[WM: Thanks for your comments. In most situations, we would agree with your analysis of what belongs in an Outbound Route as opposed to a Trunk Dial Pattern. However, as you’ve mentioned, in this case we have a problem because there is no way to discern programatically whether a call is "free" until you actually place the call. Thus, if you place the dial patterns in the Outbound Route, a call to a number which was not free would simply die since Asterisk and FreePBX have no way to back out of the Outbound Route for non-free calls and use the next available route to complete the call. We’ve covered much of this at this link. Unless you only have a few free numbers that you call (in which case your way works fine), the only practical solution at present is the one we suggested. Use an AutoDialer like AsteriDex which already knows which numbers should have a 0101 prefix. Then we can manage those calls when they are dialed through a separate route dedicated to FreeCalls. Storing a big string of numbers in the Dial Patterns for your main Outbound Route would be much more difficult to manage particularly if the entries change as people move around. We share your disappointment that Gizmo5 won’t open this up with support for a web query that would let Asterisk users determine whether a particular call is free or not BEFORE placing the call. This, of course, is the process used for ENUM which also is covered in the article.]

By: Robert Keller

Robert Keller — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:15:18 +0000

While at the last OTTS, I met the new Digium Community Coordinator. He told me about this thing he did before joining Digium called freenum.org. Have you looked at that at all? I am signed up and am unsure where to go with it. I know…google it… I have and am still wide eyed.

By: Wolf Paul

Wolf Paul — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:53:25 +0000

Just a quick comment on the Bluehost ad below and Ward’s plug for them above (which has already been amended): Their offer of unlimited disk space and unlimited traffic is good ONLY FOR WEBHOSTING. If you use it for anything else (like storing your MP3s so you can access them from anywhere, or storing other files (especially archives, like zip or tar) you want to be able to access from multiple locations), they will lock your account until you have deleted them.

So unless you really need terabytes of space for WEBSITES, you will not benefit from what they seem to advertise.

I find their advertising misleading and have cancelled my account with them.

Wolf Paul

[WM: I can see both sides on this one. First, MP3s are a red flag to all ISPs, and storage of any file with a name ending in mp3 is likely to be met with a quick (negative) response. Second, no ISP could afford to provide unlimited server space and bandwidth for folks to use their facilities as the equivalent of a remote file server. Having said that, I would quickly add that we’ve been with BlueHost for almost three years and have stored enormous ISO images in conjunction with the Nerd Vittles articles on our web site. We’ve never had a problem nor received a call. But Wolf is probably correct. If you intend to use this $6.95/month service as the off-site storage facility for the electronic data of your entire company, that’s probably not going to be a good fit with the web hosting service that BlueHost is offering. The ad in the right column is much more clear (at least to me) than the one below even though both mention $6.95 per month Web Hosting. To be honest, I never got past the eyes. But thanks.]