SHOPPING FOR A SWITCH?
By Chuck Poole, Chief Technology Officer

Shopping For A Switching Platform Update:
The following is a list of must have items, which Voiceware™ Systems’ Telephony Services Platform (TSP)™ can provide.

1) Rating

  • By Customer, Country, Toll Free/individual phone number, and time of day.
    • Minimum Increment
    • Minimum Charge
    • Subsequent Increment
    • Subsequent Charge
  • Compound rating by origin and/or destination country.

2) Routing

  • By customer, country/toll free/individual phone number, and time of day.
  • Automatic route busy/restore of T1’s that are in an alarm condition.
  • Manual route busy/restore of route or individual member of route.
  • Adjustable dialing plan by route to facilitate mixed protocol trunking.

3) Flexible Real Time Billing Methods

  • Leg A only
  • Leg B only
  • Leg A + B
  • Leg A only if Leg B connects
  • Leg A only if Leg B never connects
  • Leg A only if customer wastes time
  • Separate Wholesale and Retail billing for calls

4) Mixed Protocol Trunking

  • ISDN including NFAS
  • Feature Group A, B, and D
  • Loop Start
  • Ground Start
  • E & M
  • DID
  • R1/MF & R2/MF
  • EURO-ISDN
  • Dedicated Inbound & Outbound Trunking
  • Bi-directional Trunking
  • SS7/C7
  • T1-to-E1/E1-to-T1 conversion

5) Application Service

  • Prepaid/Postpaid Calling Card
  • International Resale/Callback
  • Prepaid Wireless
  • Voice Mail (Optional)
  • Fax Mail (Optional)
  • Pager Service (Optional)
  • Conference Calling (Optional)
  • One Number (Optional)
  • Email to Fax (Optional)
  • Personal Toll Free Service (Optional)
  • Pay Per Call/Premium rate services
  • Operator Services/Third Party Billing (Optional)
  • Modular software design allows a wide variety of custom applications.
  • Optional script language to design your own applications.

6) System Maintenance

  • Remote maintenance
    • Listen to audio on any port or resource from any phone.
    • Re-record any prompts on the system by language from any phone.
    • Check T1/E1 signaling bits and call supervision from console.
    • Complete system control via modem.
  • Zero-down-time software updates.
  • Zero-down-time platform-wide parameter updates.
  • Zero-down-time system backups. Backup all files, even open files.
  • Optional Watch Dog system can notify technical staff of all maintenance issues.

7) Accounting

  • Wholesale and Retail Billing
  • Customizable Invoices
  • Customizable Account Summaries
  • Customizable Call Detail Reports
  • 3rd Party Billing Support

8) Carrier Reconciliation (Optional)

  • Compare Carrier billing records to platform billing records
    • Real time route utilization
    • Switch peak usage report
    • Report calls missing from carrier bill
    • Report calls missing from platform bill
    • Report all time errors (carrier to platform)
    • Report all carrier rate errors
    • Report all platform rate errors

9) IP Agent Gateway -Agent Management (Optional)

  • · Flexible access control by agent. Switch owner can restrict access by agent.
  • · Agent can update the rates only for their customers.
  • · Agent can update customer features and information.
  • · Assign a credit limit to an agent.
  • · Agent can view only their customer’s billing records.
  • · Detailed and concise audit trail for each agent.
  • · Optional Customer Service application for call centers.
  • · Optional Operator Services feature to place calls on customer’s behalf.

 


Definitions:


1. Rating (Calculating the cost of a call):

Every entrepreneur has a different idea on how to charge for a call. Many switches force the switch owner to conform to a standardized rating system. Marketing, not technology, should always dictate the rating methods used. More flexible rating systems equal higher traffic due to the creative, innovative designs of marketing programs that will always vary from region to region.

The TSP™ allows the switch owner to set rates by country code to city code down to an individual phone number which is useful for billing premium rate services, such as directory assistance. In addition, the TSP™ supports rating by morning, day, evening, night, weekend, and by holiday. The TSP™ allows flexible time and billing increments for each of these rating periods.


2. Routing (Automatic Route Selection aka Least Cost Routing):

Routing is the single most effective way a switch owner can reclaim lost revenue due to shrinking margins. Many switch owners routinely employ International Private Lines (IPL) to a particular country. All calls to the focus country will attempt to ride on the IPL as the first choice, then either notify the customer the route is busy or try the next best route. It is important to note that the least costly route is not always the best route for a given situation. Routing can also be used as a customer service and retention tool. For example, if a customer is willing to pay more to get high speed connections for faxes and dial-up data, you could selectively route the customer’s calls over a better carrier which doesn’t use compressed/muxed lines. Another important feature of flexible routing is the ability to quickly change carriers when they are having trouble to a particular destination. Storms, political unrest, solar winds, cable cuts, and other unforeseen events can wreak havoc on your service. In many cases, a secondary carrier may not be affected by the same circumstances as your primary carrier. A simple change in your routing database is all it takes to keep revenue flowing and customers satisfied.

Even for single carrier environments, routing plays an important role in fault tolerance. For example, if a T1/E1 becomes inoperative due to an obvious line/equipment failure, the system is capable of automatically busying-out the members of the offending route. This allows for continued, uninterrupted service due to these common failures.

An important note for callback providers: The TSP™ supports routing for both leg A (origination) and leg B (destination) call segments. Many systems support only leg B routing.


3. Real Time Billing:

Every clever switch owner seems to have a different method of billing their customers; billing only for connected outgoing calls (leg B), incoming origination (leg A), or a combination of both. The TSP™ includes 5 different billing classes, which allow the switch owner to control how customers are billed for calls. Our billing classes used in conjunction with the rating features are an invaluable marketing tool that allows the switch owner to adapt their price plan to any given market and reclaim revenue that would normally be lost.


4. Mixed Protocol Trunking:

Many switching platforms include only a small number of trunk types forcing you to use one of the configurations they support. For example, if you want Automatic Number Identification (ANI) or Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS), you must configure your trunks as ISDN, Feature Group D, or a hybrid MF/DTMF protocol. If you utilize International Private Lines (IPL), your switch must be able to adapt to the dialing plan of the destination country. Mixed protocol trunking is also essential in multi-carrier environments where one carrier may have a different network configuration than another carrier.

ISDN/NFAS is the preferred protocol for use in switching platforms under 20 spans. It provides a gateway to the speed and power of the SS7 intelligent network. Many switch manufacturers support only a portion of the functionality this feature-rich protocol provides. For example, calls that are processed end-to-end via an SS7 interconnected facility receive a status code before placing the call. This “look ahead” method saves invaluable network time by returning to the TSP™ busies, network congestion, route failures, and the like before allowing the call to be placed. Even with this advanced intelligence available, many switch manufacturers choose to use the old conventional methods of call processing, which places the call and forces the user to “listen” to the result heard from the far-end switch. This is a tremendous waste of network time and directly impacts the number of calls that can be processed per hour. With the TSP’s ISDN support, all busies, network failures, call referrals, and the like are handled using the local platform’s resources and not the actual network, allowing the switch owner to increase revenues through more efficient use of the telephone network.


5. Application Service:

There are many switches on the market that perform a single dedicated task. Tandem switches perform large-scale trunking, prepaid calling card switches provide card services, callback switches deliver U.S. dial tone to international destinations. Although many recommendations and initiatives such as Bellcore’s Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN) are in place for the application service of switched resources, few manufacturers have designed their platforms in this utopian image. Application Service is important for switch owners who want to run a variety of programs on their switch. It allows for dynamic sharing of all trunks and system resources. By separating the applications into modules that can be loaded on the fly, new features can be added quickly and easily. All applications that are provisioned can run simultaneously on a single TSP™ platform.


6. System Maintenance:

The TSP™ has many unique maintenance features that allow a switch owner to effectively manage and maintain their platform. Background Diagnostics monitors all trunks and spans for failures and automatically removes the affected routes from service. The TSP™ Port Monitor shows real time trunk status including the user’s account information, trunk configuration, and signal bit monitoring. Calls in progress may be audioably monitored for quality control or troubleshooting. Specialized and expensive T1/E1 monitoring gear is not necessary. Likewise, all prompts can be recorded, if desired, by calling into the TSP™ from any touch-tone telephone.

System-wide parameter updates, trunk information, and program updates can all be performed without the necessity of bringing the system down. This allows the switch owner to enjoy the benefits of extra income and increased customer satisfaction due to extended “uptime”.

The TSP™ system employs an automatic backup program that runs in the background. This works in concert with an automatic tape backup system to insure all data is saved daily. Voiceware™ Systems is the first to implement this dynamic system that solves the problems associated with backing up open files.

Our optional Watch Dog system notifies your technical staff of all network outages, power failures, disk over utilization, critical failures, and all other maintenance related issues.


7. Accounting:

The TSP™ easily links to the most popular convergent billing and accounting packages using our database files, which are in the popular dBase format, or through an RS-232 SMDR port. The TSP™ also includes a fully integrated and customizable Billing and Reporting application for both retail and wholesale accounts.


8. Carrier Reconciliation:

The TSP’s Carrier Reconciliation report is an auditor’s best friend. It’s used to determine if your carriers are cheating you. Carriers may charge the wrong rate to a given destination, bill for calls that were never answered or were busy, or incorrectly report the call’s duration. Carrier Reconciliation matches every call that goes through your TSP™ with each call billed by the carrier and reports discrepancies based on settable criteria. Our customers tell us that billing errors are not uncommon. These errors cost you and your customers money. Many switch manufacturers do not offer this valuable tool because it can point out key weaknesses in their products.


9. Agent Management:

Voiceware™ Systems’ IP Agent Gateway allows the partitioning of a single switching platform into multiple virtual platforms. Agents can access the gateway over the Internet or via a dial up modem connection and gain access to only their accounts, rate files, and billing records. The agent cannot see data that belongs to other agents.

The IP Agent Gateway’s optional Customer Service / Operator Service feature allows a call center to view specific account information, account call detail, and take control of incoming calls from the TSP™. An operator can place calls on a customer’s behalf, using the customer’s account, without tying up multiple leg A and leg B connections.


Call your sales representative at +1.561.803.5412

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