What is required for a BETA feature to become STANDARD

Out of curiosity (and anxiousness for more 'standard' features), what are the internal expectations to promote a BETA feature to a STANDARD or GENERAL RELEASE feature?

As a popular example, how about the Outbound Caller ID feature in vPanel (Beta-CallerID). As many have reported in the forums, its a heavily requested and well-received feature among the residential base, and resellers would love to have it available to their client base as well.

As I browse the forums, specifically in regards to this feature, I see kudos about the feature and questions about availability to resellers, however I don't really see any "problem reports" with the feature. In other words, to the customer base, it appears to be a well-designed, fully functional feature (of course, I'm not privy to internal support documents/challenges related to the feature).

So, assuming it is working well for all involved (i.e. both customers AND VOIPo support staff), what requirements must be met to 'pull the trigger' to make it standard (i.e. transportable to the reseller program) vs. ongoing BETA.

(I am using the Caller-ID function as a working example, but am interested in "The Man with the Plan's" line of thinking overall regarding maturing a feature from concept to beta to release).

I'm getting some questions about OUTBOUND CALLER ID.

Is this available yet to reseller accounts?

And if so, can an 800 number be used for the outbound CID info?

Thanks in advance, I'll hang up and listen. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GreenLantern

I'm getting some questions about OUTBOUND CALLER ID.

Is this available yet to reseller accounts?

And if so, can an 800 number be used for the outbound CID info?

Thanks in advance, I'll hang up and listen. :)

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1) No, we do not offer outgoing caller ID even as part of our main offering. Many of our upstream carriers including our primary carrier do not support this.

It's not technilogically possible for us to just transmit a name. The underlying carrier partner that has the physical equipment in the area where the phone number is must put the name in a database. They are the only one that can do that. The vast majority of our carrier partners won't do this at all due to the administrative burden and the ones that do charge anywhere from $15-$40 to do it and then a recurring monthly fee to keep it there.

If our carrier partners start supporting it, it's something we're interested in offering.

2) Toll-free numbers cannot be used for Caller ID. Our costs for sending calls out the the phone number are extremely complex and vary depending on the to/from numbers, if in-state/out of state, the providers involved, etc. Costs for us to complete a US call will range from fractions of a center per minute to the majority of areas to well over 5 cents per minute to rural areas. It all averages out though which is how we're able to offer resellers a flat rate. When a toll-free number is used the call is typically billed at the highest possible rate since there's no data to rate the call on to determine the appropriate cost to bill.