Billing Concepts

This section deals with the billing system. It breaks down the actual call-flow from user to Provider(s).

The billing system is quite complex and there are a lot of concepts to grasp.

There are a number of main categories of billing in MOR. The most important are:

• Providers
• Least Cost Route (LCR)
• Directions
• Destinations
• Rates
• Tariffs
• Users
• Devices

Providers - In the old PSTN world, these were called Trunks. They are your routes to the outside world (out of your VoIP network). Providers can be of several types: Zap, SIP, IAX2, and H323. The type determines which technology is used to connect to the Provider.

Least Cost Route (LCR) - LCR describes how calls may go through several Providers and the order in which they go. The order can be determined by the call route's price, quality or manual priority.

Directions - This term refers to countries, or perhaps to satellite networks. It simply describes the direction in which the call is routed.

Destinations - Destinations are the specific steps that make up the course of the call. Let's say we are dialing number 37068547771. From this number, MOR knows that the Direction is Lithuania, and the Destination is the mobile network Bite. Destinations are determined by Prefix, and each destination has a unique Prefix. The Prefix in this example is 370685.

Rates - These are the prices for the Destinations. They have many properties, which determine they way they are calculated.

Tariffs - These are groups of Rates. Sometimes they are called Price Lists.

Users - This term refers to the actual user of the system – the client who dials out or receives calls. “User” may represent a single person or a whole company, but it is main unit in the system. Most of the settings are associated with Users.

Devices - Each user can have many devices. A device represents the end-point to which voice traffic should be sent. For example, a device might be a:

• VoIP phone
• VoIP softphone
• PSTN phone (connected through FXS port).