Businesses are constantly
looking for flexible communication options that scale and easily adapt to their
changing business needs. They need solutions that empower systems to do more at
a faster pace with less cost and effort. For most users, Least Cost Routing
(LCR) provides an intelligent and value-based routing of calls.
How Least Cost Routing
works to benefit a business
LCR is a program that
looks for the least expensive way to route phone calls. It directs the path of
outbound and inbound call traffic to a route that delivers the best call
quality and rates.
To illustrate, a
telephone company in California looking for a calling path to New York will
assess the calling rates from select telecom companies operating in New York.
The California company then chooses the provider that will successfully deliver
call at the lowest cost.
For decades, least cost
routing was done by directing calls to a telephone switch or private branch
exchange (PBX). With the unprecedented explosion of calls, legacy system
switches are unable to accept routing tables due to a limited memory of just a
few million routes. Additionally, exporting calls to the switch can be slow
during heavy traffic.
Today, the newer LCR
models are able to handle tens of millions of routes. They use routing engines
and software running on servers with sufficient Random Access Memory (RAM) that
can host tens of millions of routes. Routing response time is typically a few
milliseconds.
Striking a delicate
balance between Quality of Service (QoS) and cost
LCR solutions were
designed to optimize call processes and maximize profits. Balancing call
quality and cost requires that decision-makers have a full understanding of
their voice environments. Monitoring traffic routes, volumes, geographic
origins and destinations, as well as peak and slump patterns is key to making
smarter decisions.
Call logging is an
equally important tool that provides graphical and summary reports. It helps
control cost by department, trunk, or individual extension and discovers instances
of telephone fraud. It helps manage the performance of operators with the aim
of meeting or even exceeding acceptable target levels set by the organization.
It also reports whether the system is being over or under-utilized, tracking
call patterns where capacity needs to be increased or decreased to save on
costs. Finally, its QoS reporting is an all-important detail that helps improve
system performance and satisfy customers.
The Challenges
Routing Table Size
Seven digit routing based
on 1000 block partitions is more complicated than routing on six digit NPA-NXX
blocks. In the Local Exchange Routing Guide there are 166,431 six digit NPA-NXX
dial codes. In contrast, there are 644,327 dial codes when routing based on
seven digit one thousand blocks.
In telephone routing
tables, a dial code matched with a destination (IP address or trunk group) is
called a translation. Most least cost routing tables have an average of three
destinations per dial code. This means that a basic optimized least cost
routing tables for domestic US routing can have more than one and half million
translations.
Jurisdictional Routing
For a service provider to
optimize their least cost routing, they must have two routing tables, one for
intra-state calls and a second for inter-state call. Jurisdictional routing is
determined by the ANI (Automatic Number Identification), or telephone number,
of the calling party. With VoIP calls, it is common for the ANI to be an
invalid value,which are rated at the higher intra-state rate if they are
completed. In addition, most major carriers will block calls that do not have a
valid ANI. However, some service providers will accept calls with an invalid
ANI so this creates an optimization for a third least cost routing table. One
for inter-state, one for intra-state and a third for calls with invalid ANIs.
Deciphering Rates by
LATA, OCN and Tier
Least cost routing is
concerned with analyzing dial codes and the rates carriers charge to complete
calls to those dial codes. Unfortunately, most carriers to not quote rates for
US termination by dial code. Instead they quotes rate in terms of OCN, LATA and
Tier.
Technicians must
normalize carrier rates from OCN, LATA and Tier to E.164 dial codes. Carriers
often have six to eight rate tiers per LATA. Tiers are not standard and every
carrier’s tier structure is different. Manually normalizing carrier rates using
the LERG is too big a task for even the most industrious technician.
Number Portability
Correction
Today there are 197
million ported telephone numbers in North America. This development has a
dramatic impact on least cost routing. If least cost routing is based on the
dialed telephone number, up to 40% of all calls will not be routed to the
lowest cost provider.
Network design in LCR
selection
End users expect their
phones to work perfectly all the time. The challenge for IT managers is the
sourcing and delivery of a solid and redundant solution. Network design and
vendor choice are major considerations when making a decision because of
limitations on network design compatibility and vendor capabilities.
To get the most value
from a least cost routing solution, carriers and service providers may wish to
consider vendors that offer a compatible routing solution in an integrated,
proven platform. And for a more powerful competitive communications edge,
companies should opt for a dynamic solution that answers the challenges of
changing needs.
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