Provider Rate Cards

Management Provider Rate Cards

Provider Rate Cards determine routing and billing for calls being placed by customers. Before configuring Provider Rate Cards, we suggest you review Rate Card Overview then Rate Card Setup in the ConnexCS Video Guide.

Provider Rate Card Functions

Bulk Edit Select one or more Provider Cards and click Bulk Edit to modify multiple cards for settings such as Force Presentation, Dialing, Direction, and Billing Precision.

Delete Delete a Provider rate card by selecting its name from the list and then clicking the trash bin icon.

Before deleting a Provider Rate Card

Before deleting a Provider Rate Card, we need to delete the Active Revision.

Overview

Name Click the name of the provider to see individual rate card and management options. (If a Rate Card name shows a yellow warning or red alert, these will indicate details about the card. It may be stale or have some sort of error.)

Direction Cards are either Termination (calling out to PSTN) or Origination (DID numbers receiving calls from PSTN). Termination is the most common type of card used by ConnexCS customers.

Company Refers to the Provider, or Carrier, that the card is configured to use.

Currency The currency for the provider's region (typically USD, EUR, or GBP).

? Lists dependent Child (or Customer) Rate Cards, which will be impacted by any changes made to the parent card. Click on the Child Card to view the configuration.

ID A system identifier that acts as a placeholder and prevents confusion between similarly named items.

Rule Count The number of rows in the Rate Card.

Create Provider Rate Cards

Once created, new Provider Rate Cards are completed by either adding rows manually or uploading an existing file.

1. Click the button.
2. Complete desired fields. (For details, see Configure Provider Rate Card below.)
3. Click Save.
4. From here, you may add the Provider Rate Card manually or perform a Bulk Upload.

Option 1: Manual add To manually add Rate Card rows, select Create Draft then add/modify/delete desired rows.

Option 2: Bulk Upload The preferred method for adding a Rate Card is to import/upload it:

1. Click Bulk Upload then Upload.
2. Select the file, typically sent by the Provider in CSV format (if not provided as CSV, must be converted before proceeding).
3. Right-click on the first row of data and select "Set Start Row".
4. Right-click and map the columns. It is important to map all fields based on the Rate Card columns. For example:
   • Col 1 - Prefix
   • Col 2 - Name
   • Col 3 - Cost
5. Select Upload to Sever and confirm upload.
6. Select whether to make this active immediately

Manually generated cards

When users create Provider Rate Card CSV files manually in Excel (rather than generating them from a rate card management system) errors such as empty rows or duplicate prefixes may be introduced which could cause the file upload to error.

Configure Provider Rate Card

Once the Provider Rate Card has been created, additional configuration can be accessed by clicking on the Rate Card name.

Main tab

Bulk Upload Upload the Provider Rate Card using a CSV file, typically provided by the carrier.

Email Enter an email address where the CSV file will be sent.

Audit Log Review any changes made to the card settings.

Functions

• Revision: List all versions of changes on the card.
• Create Draft: Create a blank revision to manually add all prefixes and rows. This will only contain rows added manually, none of the previous revision is retained.
• Edit Revision: Make inline edits to the current revision. Upon Save, you can select to make this new revision Active. This will keep previous revision plus and changes that were made.
• Delete Revision: Select a revision to delete.
• Download: Download a CSV file of the Rate Card.

Prefix and Billing Columns

Prefix: The part of the dialed number which will match to trigger use of the card.

Name: Optional name for the card.

Cost (or Indeterminate): Refers to international calls, Toll Free (800, 888, etc) numbers, or anything else that isn't classified as Inter or Intra.

Intra (US Only): Refers to IntraState dialing (calls between numbers in the same state) and the cost of a call from this prefix to a number in the same state.

Inter (US Only): Refers to InterState dialing (calls between numbers in different states) and the cost of a call from this prefix to a number in a different state.

Billing: Call will be billed based on the MCD (Minimum Call Duration) and Pulse, represented as x/x. Each call using this Rate Card will be rounded up to MCD, then in increments of Pulse. Call durations will be rounded up based on these settings, then that new duration is what will be billed.

Billing Example

In our example, MCD is set to 30 and Pulse is set to 6. The Billing column shows 30/6. Calls would be billed as follows:

Call Duration	MCD?	Pulse	Billed Duration
1 sec	round up to 30	n/a	30 sec
20 sec	round up to 30	n/a	30 sec
30 sec	round up to 30	n/a	30 sec
31 sec	met	6	36 sec
35 sec	met	6	36 sec
36 sec	met	6	36 sec
37 sec	met	6	42 sec

Rate Connect: One-time (per call) charge for connecting the call, triggered upon SIP 200OK and ACK.

Status: Indicates a call that has been blocked

Dependent Cards: Customer cards that use the selected Rate Card. Changes to the Provider Rate Card will be applied to each dependent card.

Revisions tab

The Revision tab displays up to 8 most recent changes made to a rate card. The two most recent revisions will be available as Active or Inactive, the rest will be in Archive state.

To change Revision status:

• Click Archive next to the Revision to send it to the Archive. This may take a few minutes.
• Click Inactive to make that version Active. This may take a few minutes.
• Use the "Date Live" function by the Revision to set a future date to make the revision Active.

Properties tab

Basic

• Name (Private): The name of the card, this will only be seen within the ConnexCS Control Panel (not visible to end-customers).
• Carrier: Select the carrier associated with this card.
• Currency: The card will be billed with this currency.

Config

• Name (Public): (Optional) Allows you to display an alias or pseudonym for the carrier.
• Tech Prefix: Appended to outbound calls, this should be unique per carrier so it can allow route manipulation.
• Force Presentation: Determine how many rows to display for rates:

Option	Example	Usage	# of Rows in table
Single Rate	0.0007	Usually a UK Landline	1
IntER/IntRA	1 (NPANXX)	Refers to Interstate and Intrastate calling for USA dialing	2
IntER/IntRA/Indeterminate	1 (NPANXX)	Indeterminate indicates that call is between a USA number and another country	3

• Dialing: Select whether to bill based on the carrier of the Dialed Number or using an LRN Database (US only). The LRN (Local Routing Number) identifies the switch for a number and is used to determine billing for a call. When a number is ported from one provider to another, the billing may change based on the new carrier. An LRN dip will correct any pricing discrepancies between the original and new carriers. This helps to reduce billing costs. If the customer wants to do single rates they may not want to do the LRN dip.

ConnexCS LRN Database

ConnexCS maintains an inhouse LRN database. This ensures a quick response time and the rates are update daily. There are no charges associated with using this service, so customers have unlimited dips into the database.

• ASR+: Filter known failed non-existent/working numbers. See ASR Plus Details for additional information.

Advanced

• Direction: Configure the card as Termination (calling out to PSTN) or Origination (DID numbers receiving calls from PSTN). Termination is most common.
• Billing Precision - Round billing on a card to the specified decimal point (typically set to 4).

• Rounding Method: Specify how to handle the n+1 digit (ex: if your card is billed to 4 decimal places, this cares about the 5th digit). For our example: 0.12345 (rounded to 4 decimal places):

  Method	Explanation
  Up	Rounded up regardless of n+1 digit (0.1235)
  Down	Rounded down regardless of n+1 digit (0.1234)
  Half-Up	Values 5-9 are rounded up (0.1235)
  Half-Down	Values 0-5 are rounded down (0.1234)

• Duration Rounding: The same rounding options but for the call duration.

• Public Options: Choose what can be done with the card information: viewed via HTML (on a web page), download CSV (a spreadsheet), and whether to list the rate card in the customer portal (customer can view cards not currently on their account and select them for use). (Note: API Querying is no longer available.)
• CLI Restrict: Enable Call Line Identification (CLI) restriction(s) using regular expressions to set valid number formats. See CLI for additional details.
• PAID Restrict: Enable Pre-Asserted-Identity (PAID) restriction(s) using regular expressions to set valid number formats. See Filter PAID by Number or Pattern for additional details.
• SMS URL: not in use
• Default RTP: If set, and the customer adds the route themselves, then this will be used. Otherwise, this is an unused setting.
• Capped Rate: Block calls above the set price.

• Force RTP:

  Option	Explanation
  Disabled	Selects the least expensive path between your customer and provider.
  Direct RTP (No Proxy)	Bypass ConnexCS, so media flows directly between the customer and carrier.
  Closest (To ConnexCS) Server	Media will use the server geographically closest to ConnexCS
  Closest (Elastic) Server	This will allow traffic to traverse new servers which may be deployed. Would only cause issues if the customer runs a firewall, in which case the servers would not be authorized.

• Block Destination Type: Block calls one or more types of destination (ex: Mobile, Paging, or Satellite) using SIP Message `403 Destination Blocked'.

• Block Connect Cost: Disable/enable the per call connection cost across the carrier.
• P-Time: Packetization time, or P-Time, refers to the length of an SDP packet, based on the media time in milliseconds.
  • Default- Use whatever is set in the end-devices firmware (don't change what is sent)
  • 20- 20 ms
  • 30- 30 ms
• Delayed Bye: see Delayed Bye below
• Flow Speed (CPS): Set the number of Calls Per Second are allowed on this card.
• Delayed Bye MCD: see Delayed Bye below
• Channels: Set the number of concurrent active calls are allowed on the card.
• Delayed Bye Customer Charge: see Delayed Bye below

Delayed Bye

Delayed Bye allows a call to be extended by delaying the release of the call. This is helpful in situations where a contract with a carrier specifies a minimum duration call but you have customers that routinely do very short duration calls.

Use with caution

This feature should only be used along with full disclosure to both the customer as they will be billed for additional duration. Failing to notify the customer of this is considered Late Disconnection FAS (False Answer Supervision), ConnexCS does not endorse fraudulent activities. This feature bends the rules, if you don't use realistic figures or understand how this is working you will get unexpected results, use with caution.

There are a number of considerations when using Delayed Bye.

• Only works for termination calls.
• Only BYE messages from Downstream will be delayed.
• When a message is delayed, a 200OK will be sent Downstream instantly informing that the call has been ended.
• We only allow extending a call a maximum of 30 seconds.
• If a Downstream BYE message is delayed and an Upstream BYE interupts:
  • We will instantly inform the upstream carrier that the call has been ended.
  • The charge recorded in the carrier CDR will be the actual call duration + Delay. It will not take into consideration the incoming Upstream BYE.

Fields

• Delayed Bye: Sets how many seconds the call will be extended by.
• Delayed Bye MCD: Sets a minimum duration for a delta to be calculated. For example, if you set the Delayed BYE MCD to 10 seconds and the call last 8 seconds the call will be extended by 2 seconds.
• Delayed Bye Customer Charge: Determines if the customer should be charged for the extended call.

Incorrect Billing

Any attempt at artificially adjusting packets may cause billing problems. There are limitations within the protocol, the real world, and our implementation. You must understand what you are doing before using this feature.

Notes

Private Notes not visible to the end Customer. Not typically used on Provider Rate Cards.