I have a client that uses a ton of toll free minutes. The DID is right on the PBX. Killing our margin. What would you guys recommend for a 800 number service that is little cost that just does a forward to our pbx main number? We are seeing a lot of incoming usage on this DID and want to save cost.
IMO, your request does not make sense. If the 800 provider has to forward to a PSTN number, they’ll be paying termination so will have to charge more. In addition, your incoming number costs you, either per minute or per channel.
https://www.bulkvs.com/orig.html offers toll-free origination at $0.0055/min. I have no experience with them. You could order a test TF DID and kick the tires.
https://signalwire.com/disruptive-pricing is $0.0107/min. They have proven reliable for geographic DIDs, but I’ve not used them for toll free. However, their trunks require registration; if you are using IP authentication now and your network is somewhat flaky, this could reduce reliability somewhat.
Another option is https://www.alcazarnetworks.com/origination_tf.php at $0.0125/min. Although their origination is reliable, I had a poor experience with them for termination some years ago. I don’t know whether they have improved.
I am looking for a hand off from the 800 number to the main DID of the customer. I want to avoid them having to pay by the minute for toll free. The toll free would forward to a DID so toll free wouldn’t be in use at that point.
That’s not how that works. Toll Free is traditional a Ring-To setup and still is in most cases. SIP carriers allow you to route the Toll Free straight to your destination instead of to a local number then to your destination.
You’re paying for the Toll Free usage with a forward/ring-to or a direct destination setup.
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Callers to a Toll-Free Numbers don’t get charged (hence the name). If you or a retained party is a RespOrg for a toll-free number, you will need to ultimately ‘pay the piper’, so I can’t see any resolution to your ‘problem’
If on the other hand your system is calling a toll-free number, there are carriers who will actually pay you for sending those calls to them (not a lot 
)
And you are selling phone service? yeah, I think you need a visit from the FCC or tax man.
no one is avoiding anything. We file FCC every month. I was simply asking if there was an 800 number service that did this. I have seen older systems setup where the 800 from the carrier was forwarded to their DID so I was trying to get information regarding this
I explained this already. Traditionally, 800/Toll Free numbers had to have a Ring-TO destination. That means the 800 number had point to a LOCAL number for incoming calls. SIP/VoIP allows you to avoid the Ring-To portion and route the call directly to the destination because SIP URI routing.
You cannot get around paying for Toll Free usage. If the Toll Free usage is eating into your margin then it sounds like you’re including Toll Free usage in your MRC and yes, it’s going to do that.
Thank you for the explanation. Do you normally charge for 800 usage or give them so many minutes per month?
Pretty much every one pays the only time I include minutes is when they pay per seat and even then I’ve already allocated X cost to that based on how many seats. Going over the allotted minutes will have all overage minutes charged.
I have a couple of 800 numbers set up through VoipInnovations. Their prices are competitive for 800 number service and (IIRC) the per-minute is the same as regular inbound. The only premium you pay is a higher per-month for the actual number.
I still use them and I’ve found that they’ve grown into a good little provider, or maybe good medium-sized provider.
Just curious how to track this? We would have to run reports before billing which are painful
Well, you should already be tracking this. How do you reconcile what you are being billed with what your usage actually is? Are you not running reports at all?
The honest answer to this is you track it with CDRs and you run usage as part of your normal billing cycle procedures.
We bill flat rate so we don’t have to. This is the only times we under bid
You billing your customers X flat rate means you don’t have to know what your actual usage or patterns are? I just can’t follow that logic, sorry.
correct. We don’t know the usage. We run the reports every few months for the FCC and caught this usage.
I take it you Safe Harbor everything? Because that actually can be more costly, easier but more costly.
What is his approximate monthly toll-free incoming minutes usage? Who is the trunking provider? How much are you paying per minute?
If you are committed to a long term contract, you may be stuck, though possibly you could port to a lower cost provider.
Otherwise, discuss various options with the customer:
- He pays a per-minute fee for all usage above e.g. 3000 minutes per month.
- You switch to a budget provider.
- You no longer include toll-free service; he purchases his own and has it routed it to your PBX.
- He reduces his usage. For example, if he’s understaffed and customers are waiting on hold for an hour, he sets up the queue so after five minutes waiting, it takes a message and his customer gets called back when an agent is available.
- He takes his business elsewhere.
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