asterisk users - Nov 2009 - Odd Local Channel and 0 billsec issue

Hi

I've been noticing an odd issue with our servers (1.4.17) where a large 
number of one particular customer's (we operate a hosted VoIP platform) 
calls go through a Local channel rather than the SIP channel and 
whenever this happens our asterisk CDR is recording a billsec value of 0.

Our outgoing calls to POTS are sent through a separate carrier and we 
get a daily CDR off them in which these same calls have a non 0 duration 
so we are obviously making a loss on these calls.

All out customers outgoing calls go through the same macro which is as 
follows
[macro-extcall]
;Macro created by Ish to handle external calls
exten => s,1,Set(CALLERID(all)=${ARG2})
exten => s,2,Dial(SIP/44${ARG1}@carrier)
exten => s,3,Hangup
exten => s,102,Playtones(busy)
exten => s,103,Congestion

I've seen the same issue very occasionally with other customers but with 
one particular customer a large proportion, but not all the calls show 
this issue.

Has anyone had any experience of similar issues?

Thanks in advance

Ish
-- 
Ishfaq Malik
Software Developer
PackNet Ltd

Office:   0161 660 3062

CLI output of calls that go through the local channel instead of the defined
channel would be useful to help diagnose what's going on here.

Thanks,
--Warren Selby

On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 4:01 AM, Ishfaq Malik <ish at pack-net.co.uk>
wrote:
> Hi
>
> I've been noticing an odd issue with our servers (1.4.17) where a large
> number of one particular customer's (we operate a hosted VoIP platform)
> calls go through a Local channel rather than the SIP channel and
> whenever this happens our asterisk CDR is recording a billsec value of 0.
>
> Our outgoing calls to POTS are sent through a separate carrier and we
> get a daily CDR off them in which these same calls have a non 0 duration
> so we are obviously making a loss on these calls.
>
> All out customers outgoing calls go through the same macro which is as
> follows
> [macro-extcall]
> ;Macro created by Ish to handle external calls
> exten => s,1,Set(CALLERID(all)=${ARG2})
> exten => s,2,Dial(SIP/44${ARG1}@carrier)
> exten => s,3,Hangup
> exten => s,102,Playtones(busy)
> exten => s,103,Congestion
>
> I've seen the same issue very occasionally with other customers but
with
> one particular customer a large proportion, but not all the calls show
> this issue.
>
> Has anyone had any experience of similar issues?
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> Ish
> --
> Ishfaq Malik
> Software Developer
> PackNet Ltd
>
> Office:   0161 660 3062
>
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-- 
Thanks,
--Warren Selby
http://www.selbytech.com
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On Monday 16 November 2009 04:01:22 am Ishfaq Malik
wrote:
> I've been noticing an odd issue with our servers (1.4.17) where a large
> number of one particular customer's (we operate a hosted VoIP platform)
> calls go through a Local channel rather than the SIP channel and
> whenever this happens our asterisk CDR is recording a billsec value of 0.
Most likely cause is that somebody has set up their phone to forward to
another extension.  When that happens, Dial accomplishes the redirect
by generating a Local channel in place of the original.

-- 
Tilghman