Suggestion for a particular implementation

FreePBX Configuration
1

Hello

A word of advice for the following scenario:

We have approximately 3,000 couriers in our company who deliver goods ordered by our customers every day from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
They use an Android tablet running an internally developed app. We’re considering adding a library, via SDK, to the app to call customers before the courier arrives at their home.

The courier doesn’t know the customer’s phone number for privacy reasons; there’s only a button in the app that retrieves the information from an online database, so
the courier simply presses it just before delivery.

If the customer tries to recall a recorded message, it will notify them that a courier will be at their home shortly.

And here’s where the problems arise.

I have no problem having FreePBX in the cloud, nor do I have hardware limitations, but what I wouldn’t want to do is manage 3,000 extensions, one for each courier. This is because
the number of couriers increases and decreases monthly, so if there were 100 new couriers, I would have to add another 100 new extensions to FreePBX.

At the same time, these tablets sometimes break, so the morning before starting work, the courier can pick up a new tablet from the warehouse on which his extension would need to be configured, and there’s a high breakage rate.

Given the above, there would be ongoing and burdensome management of extensions for IT.

I don’t think it’s appropriate to have a single extension to connect 3,000 endpoints, even if they only need to make outgoing calls. Even if the username and password are
inserted in the app code and therefore can’t be stolen, and the connection is over TLS, I can’t find a simple way to minimize the workload of managing FreePBX.

Suggestions?

2

This is outbound only, so there is no need for registration, and no need for FreePBX to know that there is more than one endpoint.

You’d have to disable qualify. Ideally you wouldn’t define an AOR, but that may require treating it as an intracompany trunk, rather than an extension. You’d have to stop the tablet trying to register.

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Thanks, I had thought about it initially, but the tablets have a SIM with a 5G connection and therefore a dynamic IP address, by removing the registration, how can I authenticate the devices?

4

If, you are using a fairly standard chan_pjsip configuration, registration has no impact on authenticating the device, that is one based on the credentials provided when the call is made. That’s also pretty much true of the chan_sip, as would normally be used from a phone, when, as people seem to do, the use type=friend.

The purpose of registration is to let the registrar know where to send calls addressed to the device, not to establish an acceptable source IP address going the other way, although some ITSPs seem to make registration a precondition for accepting calls from the device.

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5

Do the couriers actually speak to the customers or do the customer just receive an automated message the courier is on the way?

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couriers actually speak to the customers

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