[VoiceOps] Creating an International Rate Deck

Tue Jun 4 14:29:15 EDT 2019

this is all so annoying b/c we do so little international,

On Tue, Jun 4, 2019 at 1:57 PM Jared Geiger <jared at compuwizz.net> wrote:

> Another annoyance to watch out for is all codes from various carriers
> won't match up. For example UK Landlines. Some carriers will say country
> code 44 is landlines and give you a rate, then break out 447XXX for the
> mobiles. Others will give a rate for 441 and 442. Then some will give a
> rate for 442, 4420, 44203, 44207 or some combination of those which they
> should all end up being compressed to 442. So your LCR has to do the
> longest prefix match per carrier and then compare against carriers. Not
> necessarily shortest prefix match. For example:
>
> Number dialed: 44-20-7499-9000
> Carrier A: 44 - 0.0025
> Carrier B: 442 - 0.0045
> Carrier C: 44207 - 0.0085
>
> The obvious LCR is carrier A, but the last time I tested A2Billing, it
> would say Carrier C is the winner because the rest of the carriers don't
> have a rate for 44207. The other LCR option at the time would do shortest
> prefix match which could cause issues with mobile calls being incorrectly
> routed and rated. Things may have changed as my experience with A2Billing
> was many years ago, but it should apply to LCR calculations in general.
>
> On Tue, Jun 4, 2019 at 10:24 AM Shripal Daphtary <shripald at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Thanks Paul and Dovid --
>>
>> I guess the question is what if i get a completion for the most expensive
>> carrier as opposed to the cheapest, and it turns out i'm underwater?  The
>> issue is the variance btw carrier1 (cheapest) and carrier6 (most expensive)
>> could be 40 cents at times or more.
>>
>> I'll take a look at GCS and R&R as well
>>
>> We have an implementation of a2 billing to route international, but use
>> it mostly to limit fraud exposure.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 4, 2019 at 11:36 AM Paul Stamoulis <pstamoulis at onestoptel.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Int’l rating and routing is not for the feint of heart or the hurried –
>>> 215k of unique rating/routing options or “breakouts” as known in the
>>> industry, is not too bad.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> You can use MS excel if you have the time to continually update and are
>>> familiar with excel macros but remember that rate updates come at least
>>> 5once or twice a week with most vendors so times that by the number of
>>> vendors and be ready to update-update-update or else you can lose money.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> You may be better off either purchasing specialized SW or using one of
>>> the many cloud based companies to manage your rates for you; GCS is one
>>> such company in the USA and R&R is another – I have no relations with
>>> either company but I hear that they are both decent.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> You should try to use all 6 carriers because, you are going to find that
>>> when one of the cheaper vendors does NOT work to one of the breakouts, then
>>> usually the other cheap vendors do NOT either. That’s when you need to be 6
>>> or more routes deep or risk upsetting clients.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> As far as the mark-up on rates, don’t sweat that too much round up and
>>> have a larger markup for the cheaper rates. For retial certainly , you
>>> should have more than enough room and for wholesale int’l sales, well
>>> that’s a whole other subject that gets much more complex… good luck,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *Paul Stamoulis    +1 212 444 3003     Onestopcorp – thousands of
>>> technology solutions... just one call!*
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *Please connect at https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-stamoulis-56504531/
>>> <https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-stamoulis-56504531/>*
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* VoiceOps <voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org> *On Behalf Of *Shripal
>>> Daphtary
>>> *Sent:* Tuesday, June 4, 2019 10:10 AM
>>> *To:* VoiceOps at voiceops.org
>>> *Subject:* [VoiceOps] Creating an International Rate Deck
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Hey group,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I have a question that I have been struggling with for years and have
>>> never come up with a good solution for.  It revolves around International
>>> Rate Deck creation, but i guess it could be for any tariff.   We have
>>> multiple carriers for International, however, i'm trying out Thinq right
>>> now so we can use their LCR.  Our other carriers aren't very successful
>>> with Intl.  Thinq's rate deck to me is 6 carriers for each prefix, making
>>> it around 215,000 lines. The carrier(s) that have the lowest cost for each
>>> prefix varies, so i can't turn off the most expensive three or something
>>> like that.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I was thinking of taking the least expensive 3 carriers and then
>>> averaging them and creating my rate from that average and then only allow
>>> Thinq to go 3 carriers deep. Does anyone have any experience with this?
>>>  Are there any best practices?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The second part of the question is how does one calculate the profit
>>> margin?  Let's say you wanted to make 35% for retail and 20% for wholesale,
>>> but if you call UK landline, the cost is only 0.004.  Your rate  would be
>>> 0.0054 for retail and 0.0048, which is nothing.  We have been doing
>>> something like If your cost is less than 0.03, then increase by 35% or 20%
>>> or whatever.  however, that doesn't always work if the cost is super close
>>> to your target.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Does anyone have any hard and fast rules that they use when creating
>>> decks? is there software that can help my puny brain think through this?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks !
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Shri
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> VoiceOps mailing list
>> VoiceOps at voiceops.org
>> https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
>>
> _______________________________________________
> VoiceOps mailing list
> VoiceOps at voiceops.org
> https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://puck.nether.net/pipermail/voiceops/attachments/20190604/ccbdd5a0/attachment.htm>