Wonder if the assorted contents heron could help with this one?.

A Taxi company we know has a data system that when the Taxi approaches
the premises the data system knows this by the GPS tracking system and
hence makes a two ring call to the punter to let them know their Taxi is
outside

This works very well and is considered most useful by the customers but
its just intended to let them know its there by a simple "Two ring" then
terminate but a lot of customers manage to lift the handset and hence
incur a connection charge which over a month or so is running up quite a
large "call" bill.

Anyone know of a Third party provider that either has a no connection
fee or a lower cost than BT one. VoIP will do for this application if
need be they have a good broadband connection but no cable modem or VM
system available.

Cheers...
--
Tony Sayer

In article ,
tony sayer wrote:

Wonder if the assorted contents heron could help with this one?.

A Taxi company we know has a data system that when the Taxi approaches
the premises the data system knows this by the GPS tracking system and
hence makes a two ring call to the punter to let them know their Taxi is
outside

This works very well and is considered most useful by the customers but
its just intended to let them know its there by a simple "Two ring" then
terminate but a lot of customers manage to lift the handset and hence
incur a connection charge which over a month or so is running up quite a
large "call" bill.

Anyone know of a Third party provider that either has a no connection
fee or a lower cost than BT one. VoIP will do for this application if
need be they have a good broadband connection but no cable modem or VM
system available.

I'm guessing there's a data-link from the GPS in the taxi back to base
and it's equipment at base which does the call...

Can't you simply get one of the BT call packages with bundled local
calls, etc?

Or might it not be cheaper to make the call via a mobile?

There are plenty of cheap/almost free VoIP operators though -
e.g. Sipgate... Whether they'd like those sorts of calling patterns is
anyones guess, however...

Or why not just charge the punters an extra 10p for the service... Give
us 10p or we sit outside beeping the horn

Gordon

On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 19:01:15 +0000, tony sayer wrote:

Wonder if the assorted contents heron could help with this one?

Well don't we all? It's such a rare species of heron that it doesn't even
have an entry on Wikipedia.

--
http://ale.cx/ (AIM:troffasky) )
20:04:55 up 20 days, 56 min, 4 users, load average: 0.02, 0.02, 0.00
It is better to have been wasted and then sober
than to never have been wasted at all

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...

Wonder if the assorted contents heron could help with this one?.

A Taxi company we know has a data system that when the Taxi approaches
the premises the data system knows this by the GPS tracking system and
hence makes a two ring call to the punter to let them know their Taxi is
outside

This works very well and is considered most useful by the customers but
its just intended to let them know its there by a simple "Two ring" then
terminate but a lot of customers manage to lift the handset and hence
incur a connection charge which over a month or so is running up quite a
large "call" bill.

Anyone know of a Third party provider that either has a no connection
fee or a lower cost than BT one. VoIP will do for this application if
need be they have a good broadband connection but no cable modem or VM
system available.

Cheers...
--
Tony Sayer




Voipfone - no connection fee, lowish cost to mobiles - couple of pence max
if the punter picks up and you can make it appear to be your base number, so
if the customer has your number in their phone it say 01234 567890"Sayers
Cars" or whatever.

"Gordon Henderson" wrote in message
...
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:


I'm guessing there's a data-link from the GPS in the taxi back to base
and it's equipment at base which does the call...



Yes and no. There are two different systems, the most basic is the driver
makes a mobile call from a phone. The much more sophisticated is a data link
from the taxi but the signal is not generated by the GPS system. It's done
manually by the driver but as you say its equipment at base that does the
calling. The second only requires a single key press by the driver and is by
far the most reliable.

http://www.auriga.co.uk/vehicle/

These systems even come with SatNav to the address, this is a major
advantage in finding the property or at least getting with in 10m of it due
to the ludicrously poor way that people make their property number visible
from a vehicle.



Alan

In article , Gordon Henderson
scribeth thus
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:

Wonder if the assorted contents heron could help with this one?.

A Taxi company we know has a data system that when the Taxi approaches
the premises the data system knows this by the GPS tracking system and
hence makes a two ring call to the punter to let them know their Taxi is
outside

This works very well and is considered most useful by the customers but
its just intended to let them know its there by a simple "Two ring" then
terminate but a lot of customers manage to lift the handset and hence
incur a connection charge which over a month or so is running up quite a
large "call" bill.

Anyone know of a Third party provider that either has a no connection
fee or a lower cost than BT one. VoIP will do for this application if
need be they have a good broadband connection but no cable modem or VM
system available.

I'm guessing there's a data-link from the GPS in the taxi back to base
and it's equipment at base which does the call...

Yes..


Can't you simply get one of the BT call packages with bundled local
calls, etc?

Might look at that then..

Or might it not be cheaper to make the call via a mobile?

No not really..

There are plenty of cheap/almost free VoIP operators though -
e.g. Sipgate... Whether they'd like those sorts of calling patterns is
anyones guess, however...

Or why not just charge the punters an extra 10p for the service... Give
us 10p or we sit outside beeping the horn

Umm .. that might be a bit impractical with some of them;!..

Gordon

--
Tony Sayer

"R. Mark Clayton" wrote in message ...

"tony sayer" wrote in message ...

Wonder if the assorted contents heron could help with this one?.

A Taxi company we know has a data system that when the Taxi approaches
the premises the data system knows this by the GPS tracking system and
hence makes a two ring call to the punter to let them know their Taxi is
outside

This works very well and is considered most useful by the customers but
its just intended to let them know its there by a simple "Two ring" then
terminate but a lot of customers manage to lift the handset and hence
incur a connection charge which over a month or so is running up quite a
large "call" bill.

Anyone know of a Third party provider that either has a no connection
fee or a lower cost than BT one. VoIP will do for this application if
need be they have a good broadband connection but no cable modem or VM
system available.

Cheers...
--
Tony Sayer




Voipfone - no connection fee, lowish cost to mobiles - couple of pence max if the punter picks up and you can make it appear to be
your base number, so if the customer has your number in their phone it say 01234 567890"Sayers Cars" or whatever.

Likewise any of the Betamax clones, smartvoip, smslisto et all.
At most a penny or so if the call is answered
Wouldn't it be nice if you could get a softphone integrated with their taxi
business system.

--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%

tony sayer wrote:

A Taxi company we know has a data system that when the Taxi approaches
the premises the data system knows this by the GPS tracking system and
hence makes a two ring call to the punter to let them know their Taxi is
outside

It seems to me that this violates fair usage principles, Don't be
surprised if they get their phone accounts cancelled!

"David Woolley" wrote in message ...
tony sayer wrote:

A Taxi company we know has a data system that when the Taxi approaches
the premises the data system knows this by the GPS tracking system and
hence makes a two ring call to the punter to let them know their Taxi is
outside

It seems to me that this violates fair usage principles, Don't be surprised if they get their phone accounts cancelled!

Perhaps it does in spirit :-)
In my family there has always been a culture of "Give me 3 rings when you
arrive safely" etc.
I have never seen a clause in the T&C of a telecom service that specifically
forbids sending a message by making a phone ring.

--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%

"Graham." wrote in message news:hn16ba$ej3
"R. Mark Clayton" wrote in message
"tony sayer" wrote in message

A Taxi company we know has a data system that when the Taxi approaches
the premises the data system knows this by the GPS tracking system and
hence makes a two ring call to the punter to let them know their Taxi is
outside

SNIP



Voipfone - no connection fee, lowish cost to mobiles - couple of pence
max if the punter picks up and you can make it appear to be your base
number, so if the customer has your number in their phone it say 01234
567890"Sayers Cars" or whatever.

Likewise any of the Betamax clones, smartvoip, smslisto et all.
At most a penny or so if the call is answered
Wouldn't it be nice if you could get a softphone integrated with their
taxi
business system.

--
Graham.

I think he is well ahead of you on that front - see above - all he needs is
an ATA or similar to plug the system into instead of a BT line, although if
you could integrate a program that would call over IP then you would save
buying a box. If the system uses TAPI interface and the softphone provides
one it shouldn't be too hard.