Routing to carriers

Having defined a carrier, there are several ways to route customers' calls to that carrier:

Least Cost Routing

By default, all calls will route to the Least Cost Routing carriers, based on the termination rates offered by the carriers. Least Cost Routing also supports Alternative Routing, which overflows calls to more expensive carriers in the LCR routing system in the event of call failures.

As a simpler alternative to uploading carrier rates, it is possible to include a carrier in Least Cost Routing with its rates set to zero.

Optionally, a subset of the Least Cost Routing carriers can be selected for particular tariffs. See "Preparing a tariff" for more information. This override can also be carried out an account level.

Tariff routing

If carrier rates have not been uploaded, calls can still be routed to a carrier at tariff level. When preparing the tariff for upload, you need to specify the Route Number for the carrier and the rate at which that carrier sells termination.

Account routing

If carrier rates have not been set, calls can still be routed to a carrier by defining a special route for an account. Click on the Special rates and routes link on an account page and select the name of the carrier in the First Route section. You must also enter a wholesale rate at which the carrier sells termination. If you leave the Wholesale rate field blank, then this carrier will be sought in the Least Cost Routing tables, and calls will fail, because the carrier rates will not have been uploaded.

Testing carriers

Once you have set up a carrier, you will need to test that it accepts calls as you expect. You can do this using DUAL Softswitch's direct carrier selection feature. This is only available to calls made from account 100001, which is a special administrative account.

To make a test call, dial:

* [Route number] * Destination number

Each carrier has a unique Route Number, and this can be found on Carriers page. The destination number should be dialled in accordance with the geographical options defined for account 100001. DUAL Softswitch will perform the necessary digit manipulation. You can use this testing method for both H.323 and SIP carriers. You may need to reconfigure your VoIP device to enable this feature.