VoIP Billing & Termination (Wholesale)
Wholesale termination differs from other types of termination only in terms of volume and authentication methods. Typically in a wholesale environment, a large amount of traffic is emanating from from a few customers, and the focus needs to be on throughput.
Often with wholesale, the charging mechanism is a simple one, with no free minutes, connection charges, or stepped charges. A2Billing can supply a commercial alternative version of calling A2Billing without these features in order to raise the throughput for a given piece of hardware, at the expense of only allowing charging types of x cents per minute.
Many switching platforms, A2Billing excepted, do not allow username / secret style authentication, so A2Billing allows Wholesale customers to authenticate on the basis of their IP address and / or a minimum 5 digit customer code.
As with other systems, A2Billing’s capacity can be increased not only by changing to the Wholesale version of A2Billing but by also splitting out the components of the system by hosting the telephony engine on one of more servers, referring back to the same high capacity database or database cluster.
Vertical Integration
When considering providing wholesale services, it is possible to add in a Reseller Edition of A2Billing, so that not only can the carrier provide minutes, but also provide the switch and billing system to their customers so that they in turn can provide end-user services and sending the minutes to the wholesaler. Furthermore, Star2Billing can license their training program to Wholesalers wishing to sell virtual billing systems to their customers.
Features and Benefits
- Flexible charging options – The rate table allows for many charging options, including connection and disconnection charges and stepped billing.
- Flexible recurring maintenance charge system.
- Package minutes, with free calls or minutes to selected destinations.
- On Net calls free to the operator.
- On Net calls can be free of charge to the customer, or a per minute fee and/or connection charge can be made.
- Least cost routing via the cheapest carrier.
- Online customer Portal.
- Online Sign-up as standard.
- Subscription charges
- DIDs, with online purchase, monthly billing, and PSTN failover.
- Email low balance notifications.
- Local Dialing options.
- Caller ID manipulation.
- Flexible authentication methods.
- Limiting concurrent calls per customer.
- Customer grouping for easier management and control
- Compatible with commission agents.
- Detailed reporting and statistics.
Conclusion
A2Billing is a low cost method to enter the wholesale market, and may be considered by any existing telecom carrier, particularly those that already have existing agreements with tier one and and tier two carriers, as they rates they enjoy will almost certainly be better than those widely available elsewhere.
Products to Consider:
For more information of on the Star2Billing products that can supply wholesale services, please click on the links below:-
- Managed Install (Single Server) – Installation of the single server complete with comprehensive training and support.
- Single Server – Suitable for Approximately 200 concurrent calls depending on the hardware and call Patterns.
- Enterprise System – Scalable to almost any size and capacity. Ideal for connection to the PSTN using E1 or T1 lines.
- Enterprise System with Load Balancing – Scalable to almost any size and capacity, and will load balance across multiple switches.
- Reseller Edition – Provide both the wholesale minutes to your customers, and the billing platform.