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Idea
In some countries there exist a number of telephone companies. They carry out their own price policy, they are oriented to different area of activity (local, global), finally they compete with each other. Therefore their prices are differ depending on time of day, on country and region, and whether it vacation day or no. The idea arises to supply customers a service which allow one to minimize telephone expenses.
Realization
To realize the idea especially designed device and Service Center were created. The device is distributed among customers. They are registered in Service Center. The information on each customer is stored in database. Each customer has his own set of providers (telephone companies), thus routing table is generated personally for each customer.
Besides of this, the database contains the information about all providers and their price lists. The device can access the database by telephone cable. By virtue of obtained information it make a decision which provider should be used to minimize cost of call.
MS SQL server 7.0 was used as DBMS, middle wear is implemented in Perl. User interface is supported in Java.
How it looks
Customer buys a device and then register himself in Service Center by means of the device. The device should be connected to telephone cable between telephone socket and telephone set. During dialing the device reach a decision what provider should be used for connection. The decision is made taking to account whose cost is the lowest in this time of this day (may be vacation) for this country.
If, however, customer wants to make some call by certain provider, he must enter the provider prefix before phone number.
Features
The idea of such service is not new. Similar service exists, for example, in Germany. But this project is supposed to provide more advanced functionality. The features are:
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Integration to Internet: customer could view his statistics at any time in Service Center site. He also can obtain all information and help in this site. |
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Implementation in Intranet technology: settings and operation with database are carried out by means of web browser. |
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The system supports multilingual operation, it allows one easily to add new language, so that administrator, staff, webmaster and customers can operate in their native language. The multilingual backend could be essential for countries with several state languages. Besides, it may be important for distribution purposes. |
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Providers supply Service Center with price lists of special format, then price lists are converted automatically to database and could be viewed on web site in convenient form. Providers can make the modifications in their price lists using web browser. |
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In the context of the project a software emulator of the device was developed, thus the device could be replaced by pair: computer + modem. |
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