The open source billing solution is available both as a free software download and in a pre-configured appliance. Version 1.9 will be introduced at ISPCON next month.

by Jeff Goldman [September 19, 2007]

Ivan Kohler created his ISP billing solution back in 1996 as an employee of a large regional ISP—in 1998, he acquired the copyright to the code and released it as the open source solution Freeside. Making the software available for free, Kohler says, proved to be a great way to get free advertising, and by 2001, it was popular enough that he began providing Freeside consulting full-time.

And it kept growing. In 2005, Kohler incorporated the company Freeside Internet Services, Inc., and hired a staff of programmers. "We had a big contract from a public company, and it provided the impetus to say, 'Okay, this is absurd: this is more than one person can handle,'" he says. "So I hired a couple of guys that were already familiar with the code."

At the same time, it's not all that corporate—Kohler says his employees all still work from home. "Six months ago, I got an office, which is weird for me—but my girlfriend's very happy about it," he says. "And maybe the employees will get to where they want offices at some point, but right now they're all happy working out of their homes."

Freeside 415-462-1624 sales@sisd.com

The fact that Freeside is open source, Kohler says, remains one of the application's key selling points. "That's always been something that people are very interested in—not having to worry about paying royalty costs as they grow, not having to pay licensing costs for add-on modules, or anything like that," he says.

A hardware option
Over the past few years, Kohler says, Freeside's customer base has expanded significantly. "While we do still have customers that are small mom-and-pop ISPs, the product has really grown up," he says. "Our bread and butter is not very small companies any more, but companies of a larger size. And we've also diversified: we're not only focused on ISPs these days—we also do a ton of work for voice over IP providers and software-as-a-service providers."

Also relatively new to the offering is a suite of server appliances with Freeside preinstalled, ranging in price from $2,950 to $7,900. Kohler says the appliances offer two key benefits. "One, it comes pre-configured and plugs into your network," he says. "Two, because it's a piece of hardware, it can be treated as a different kind of expense than paying us for consulting—someone can buy it and depreciate it over five years, or get a lease on it from a leasing provider, things that they weren't able to do when all we provided was a consulting service. So it's been wonderfully successful for us: about three quarters of our customers go with the hardware appliance these days."

Compared to the $2,000 installation service that Freeside offers, Kohler says, the appliance is a great deal: it also comes with (depending on the model) between two and six months of support, and between one and five years of security updates. "The idea is that it starts to be a complete package," he says. "You say, 'Okay, I'll buy this—I know I get the hardware, I can plug it into my network, I know the guys behind it will help me support the software and get it all up and running for me, and I know I'm covered for my first two or four or six months of support.'"

Introducing version 1.9
The software itself has also grown enormously. To support the company's VoIP customers, a robust new rating engine has been added, along with the integration of the Request Tracker open source ticketing system. "We added the ability to link tickets to customers, made it aware of a customer base, and integrated it into our application," Kohler says.

Freeside's customer interface remains entirely web-based—and Kohler says it's now much easier for customers to integrate directly with the application as well. "We made all the functionality available with a web services interface," he says. "So our advanced customers are now writing their own interfaces in PHP and Java and .NET, and then using the web services interface to integrate to the back end."

The software is currently in version 1.7.3—at ISPCON next month, the company will be introducing version 1.9, which boasts an entirely rewritten billing and collection engine that gives users much more flexibility in automating late billing and collection events. "It's written as a very general state machine event system," Kohler says.

Looking at the application as a whole, Kohler says Freeside's strengths now reach far beyond the software's open source roots. "A lot of our customers consider the licensing an advantage, and a lot of our customers could care less," he says. "With the billing and the advanced trouble ticketing system, we really offer a package that's comparable to the best packages out there, whatever their licensing is."

— End

   

Online resources:
		ISP-Billing Directory
		Billing Service Quick Reference Chart

Related articles:
	[Dec. 11, 2000]	Sending Bills by E-mail
	[Mar. 16, 2001]	ISP Marketing During Tough Times
	[Apr. 24, 2001]	7th Biannual ISPCON ISP-CEO Roundtable Insights