Thursday, February 10, 2011

Interstate carrier service

Like Dante’s  circles of hell, phone carrier services just  keep  spreading out. The next  circle  of charges is interstate. Interstate includes calls to a destina- tion outside the  local calling  area’s state but  still inside the United  States. Interstate is sometimes referred to as calling  across state lines  or state-to- state calling.


More often  than not,  interstate calls involve  more  than one carrier. For this  reason, it is difficult  for businesses (or consumers) to get any special deals based on their usage. If your  carrier doesn’t have  facilities covering all these types of calls from the  point of origin  to the  calling destination, they  lease services from other carriers. These costs are passed on to the  carrier’s cus- tomers (that’s you).

How can VoIP help  you with interstate charges? For consumers it is basically the  same process as with intralata or intrastate costs. You pay a flat charge per  month to a VoIP carrier. These carriers have  different levels of service, but  most permit you to make unlimited calls anywhere in the  country for no additional cost.

If you’re  a company that has  a VoIP network spreading across multiple states, all the  calling  that goes  on between the  various locations is free of recurring interstate carrier service charges and  regulatory fees.
International  carrier service

Last but not least  is the service category known as international. International service originates where you are and  terminates in another country. This is the  carrier service category that is ripest for elimination by VoIP networks because international carrier service is the  most expensive per  minute of the  five regulated categories. Among corporations that do lots  of international calling,  it’s no surprise that a movement is building to deploy VoIP.

Remember our old friend regulation? Much of the  cost of international calls comes in the  form of increased regulatory fees. In fact, more recurring regula- tory costs are associated with international minutes than with any of the  other four categories of regulated service.

Companies can run a VoIP network globally.  They  can run a VoIP network for domestic calls.  Either of these network approaches can also  have  an attached VPN (virtual private network). The VPN can support telephony calls coming
in or going out  through the  Internet. These network options would eliminate most of the  cost of international carrier services calling.  Kind of makes you want  to open a branch office in Paris  or Beijing.

VPNs use the  carrier transport capabilities of the  global  Internet to support mobile and  global  communications. VPNs started out  supporting computer data and  e-mail back  in the  mid-1990s.  Since then, VoIP has added telephony to the  list of VPN applications.


If your  company doesn’t make many  international calls,  VoIP can still save  you a barrel of money in all the  other domestic-based rate categories.


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