PortaOne Delivers New Features in PortaSwitch Maintenance Release 37

PortaOne announced availability of MR37-0, the newest version of PortaSwitch, communication services delivery platform.

MR37 Highlights

• PortaSIP Cluster
• IPTV with Minerva Networks
• Extended Billing Periods
• Enhanced Dialing Rules
• Fair Usage Policy for Voice Calls
• Billing by TrunkGroup-ID
• Extended xDR Import
• Simplified Call Pickup Interface
• Multi-Invoice Download

The most important improvements in the functionality include:

PortaSIP Cluster: simple, secure, and dependable

The PortaSIP® cluster meets the highest possible demands for reliability within VoIP class 4 services. PortaSIP® cluster provides a single entry point - “a visible” IP address - to your partners (VoIP carriers and SIP trunking customers); incoming calls are handled first by a dispatching node and are then evenly distributed to back-end processing nodes. As a result:

• The interconnection process with other carriers becomes really simple;
• Your network topology is not exposed to either your customers’ or carrier partners;
• In case of a HW failure of a single server, the system automatically reconfigures and keeps processing calls without any changes on the client end;
• Call activity is load-balanced among available processing nodes;
• Your overall traffic processing capability can be easily scaled up by simply adding more back-end PortaSIP® servers.

IPTV with Minerva Networks: more revenue sources

PortaBilling® now provisions service on the iTVFusion IPTV platform by Minerva Networks; this allows service providers to add IPTV to data, voice and messaging services already offered via the PortaSwitch® platform.

Extended Billing Periods: greater flexibility and efficiency

PortaBilling® now allows the closing of customer billing periods with a delay to allow enough time to finish importing CDRs or enter manual charges. This assures accurate and complete invoices even if some data is slightly delayed and / or received after the billing period is over. It also gives administrators a chance to review charges for the current billing period and make adjustments as required. This greatly facilitates working with large corporate customers where billing data typically arrives from multiple sources and then needs to be verified.

Enhanced Dialing Rules: better customer experience

In addition to “global” dialing rules (pre-configured by administrator for large groups of customers), each customer can define his own dialing rule in case some parameters are different, for example, when, in addition to the country’s standard dialing prefixes for international and domestic calls, 9 is used to access an outside line.

Fair Usage Policy for Voice Calls: avoid service abuse

This new enhancement allows you to control the maximum allowed number of simultaneous calls (incoming, outgoing or combined) of an account based on the assigned product. This automatically prevents service abuse in case the product offers unlimited calling, etc.

Billing by TrunkGroup-ID: improves your bottom line

The new call handling scenario allows the implementation of a wholesale traffic exchange - when a call is originally handled by an external SBC or gateway but is then passed to PortaSIP® for real-time authorization and routing. This greatly enhances efficiency and profitability while significantly reducing the amount of administrative work required, since everything is managed via the PortaBilling® interface now, meaning there is no need to maintain any routing information in the SBC/gateway.

Extended xDR Import: more options and flexibility

Historically, the CDR import utility in PortaBilling® was used to import the data about calls processed via external switch or telco operator. Now, the import framework includes templates for importing xDRs for any other types of services, for instance, both mobile and broadband data transfer or messaging.

Simplified Call Pickup Interface: smooth migration experience for end users

Simplified Call Pickup Interface: smooth migration experience for end users To answer the demand from end-users who migrate to hosted IP PBX services provided on PortaSwitch®, it is now possible to use short (1 or 2 digit) call pickup codes. This allows end-users to migrate to PortaSwitch® while maintaining exactly the same user experience as on another system.

Multi-Invoice Download: greater efficiency and lower overhead

To facilitate business support operations, it is now possible to retrieve the list of invoices for a specific customer and time period, and then download all of them as a single archive.