White, black and grey routes

Last updated

In telecommunications business, a white route is a route where both source and destination are legal termination. This is opposed to a black route, which is a route that is illegal in both ends. Also common in telecom (especially VoIP) is the term grey route, which defines a route that is legal for one country or the party on one end, but illegal on the alternative end.

Contents

An example of the white/grey/black trichotomy is often seen in telecom routes from the United States to India. In India, a telecom oligopoly is granted to a few large corporations. Hence, all legal ("white") telecom traffic to the country is subject to the rates imposed by these corporations. To overcome this restriction for the purpose of achieving lower costs for consumers, and to make a profit in the process, many small parties set up VoIP routers in homes and offices around India. Telecom traffic from other countries is sent to these VoIP routers via IP and terminated to the local Indian PSTN. [1] This process is illegal in India ("black"), but completely lawful in the USA ("white"). A route like this, white on one end and black on the other is said to be "grey".

SIM boxes

A "SIM box" is an unofficial voice over IP gateway which uses multiple mobile telephones and SIM cards for PSTN connectivity, while connecting to the Internet by conventional means. These are normally operated clandestinely in third-world calling destinations as the "black" end of a "grey route" where conventional private branch exchange lines (such as T-carrier primary rate interface) are not available to VoIP operators due to a hostile local regulatory environment.

In India, for instance, an Internet Service Licensee is not permitted to have PSTN/PLMN connectivity as voice communication to and from a telephone connected to PSTN/PLMN and following E.164 numbering is prohibited in India. [1] By using licensing restrictions and regulations to ensure that the interconnection between the PSTN/PLMN network and Internet is not permitted, the government in India delivers a lucrative monopoly to International Long Distance (ILD) service providers licensed under Section 4 of the Indian Telegraph Act as the only carriers officially allowed to carry international long distance traffic into India.

See also

Related Research Articles

Telephony is the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunication services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. The history of telephony is intimately linked to the invention and development of the telephone.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet telephony, broadband telephony, and broadband phone service specifically refer to the provisioning of communications services over the public Internet, rather than via the public switched telephone network (PSTN), also known as plain old telephone service (POTS).

Enhanced 911, E-911 or E911 is a system used in North America to automatically provide the caller's location to 911 dispatchers. 911 is the universal emergency telephone number in the region. In the European Union, a similar system exists known as E112 and known as eCall when called by a vehicle.

Telephone number mapping is a system of unifying the international telephone number system of the public switched telephone network with the Internet addressing and identification name spaces. Internationally, telephone numbers are systematically organized by the E.164 standard, while the Internet uses the Domain Name System (DNS) for linking domain names to IP addresses and other resource information. Telephone number mapping systems provide facilities to determine applicable Internet communications servers responsible for servicing a given telephone number using DNS queries.

A softswitch is a call switching node in a telecommunications network, based not on the specialized switching hardware of the traditional telephone exchange, but implemented in software running on a general-purpose computing platform. Like its traditional counterparts it connects telephone calls between subscribers or other switching systems across a telecommunication network. Often a softswitch is implemented to switch calls using voice over IP (VoIP) technologies, but hybrid systems exist.

Business telephone system Multiline telephone system typically used in business environments

A business telephone system is a multiline telephone system typically used in business environments, encompassing systems ranging in technology from the key telephone system (KTS) to the private branch exchange (PBX).

The next-generation network (NGN) is a body of key architectural changes in telecommunication core and access networks. The general idea behind the NGN is that one network transports all information and services by encapsulating these into IP packets, similar to those used on the Internet. NGNs are commonly built around the Internet Protocol, and therefore the term all IP is also sometimes used to describe the transformation of formerly telephone-centric networks toward NGN.

Direct inward dialling (DID), also called direct dial-in (DDI) in Europe and Oceania, is a telecommunication service offered by telephone companies to subscribers who operate a private branch exchange (PBX) system. The feature provides service for multiple telephone numbers over one or more analog or digital physical circuits to the PBX, and transmits the dialed telephone number to the PBX so that a PBX extension is directly accessible for an outside caller, possibly by-passing an auto-attendant.

VoIP phone phone using one or more VoIP technologies

A VoIP phone or IP phone uses voice over IP technologies for placing and transmitting telephone calls over an IP network, such as the Internet, instead of the traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN).

In voice telecommunications, least-cost routing (LCR) is the process of selecting the path of outbound communications traffic based on cost. Within a telecoms carrier, an LCR team might periodically choose between routes from several or even hundreds of carriers for destinations across the world. This function might also be automated by a device or software program known as a least-cost router.

VoIP User was a community-driven and financed SIP based VoIP network. The projects aim is to introduce people to the concept of VoIP by allowing members to experiment with SIP and IAX2 devices.

Telephone companies in different countries use a variety of international telecoms routes to send traffic to each other. These can be legal routes or other arrangements the industry calls grey routes, special carrier arrangements, settlement by-pass and other euphemisms.

International telephone calls are those made between different countries. These telephone calls are processed by international gateway exchanges (switches). Charges for these calls were high initially but declined greatly during the 20th century due to advances in technology and liberalization. Originally they were placed via long-distance operators. The calls were transmitted by cable, communications satellite, radio, and more recently, fiber optics and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). International direct dialling was introduced in the 1970s, so calls can be dialed by country code without an operator.

An IP PBX is a system that connects telephone extensions to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and provides internal communication for a business. An IP PBX is a PBX system with IP connectivity and may provide additional audio, video, or instant messaging communication utilizing the TCP/IP protocol stack.

Iristel is a Canadian provider of Voice over Internet Protocol services, and is designated as a competitive local exchange carrier. The company was founded in 1999, and is headquartered in Markham, Ontario.

RanksTel is a Bangladeshi telecom company. It is a private public switched telephone network (PSTN) operator in Bangladesh and nation's second largest PSTN operator.

SIP trunking enables the end point’s PBX to send and receive calls via an IP network, such as the Internet or private WAN. As SIP is applied for the signalling protocol for multiple real-time application, SIP trunk is able to control voice, video and messaging applications. It is also a voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology and streaming media service based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) by which Internet telephony service providers (ITSPs) deliver telephone services and unified communications to customers equipped with SIP-based IP PBX and unified communications facilities. Most unified communications applications provide voice, video, and other streaming media applications such as desktop sharing, web conferencing, and shared whiteboard.

A VoIP gateway is a gateway device that uses Internet Protocols to transmit and receive voice communications (VoIP). The general term is ambiguous and can mean many different things. There are many such devices. They are quickly becoming the most common type of voice phone service in many areas.

G3 Telecom is a telecommunications company based in Toronto. Established in 1999, it is a facilities-based telecommunications reseller registered with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and U.S. Federal Communications Commission and serves customers in both countries with over 3 million calls processed monthly. Its offerings include long distance, Voice over IP (VoIP) home phone, and an alternative international roaming service which is being offered under the sub-brand G3 Wireless. G3 Telecom is registered with the Better Business Bureau where it currently maintains an A+ rating.

NuWave Communications is an American privately held company, supplying cloud-based telephony, including unified communications (UcaaS] and collaboration services, to customers in the finance, healthcare, hospitality, government and Small & Medium Business sectors. The company is headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada with office locations in Los Angeles; Washington, DC; New Jersey and Gujarat, India.

References

  1. 1 2 "TECHNICAL NOTE ON ILLEGAL INTERNATIONAL LONG DISTANCE TELEPHONE EXCHANGE IN INDIA". ResearchGate. Retrieved 2016-02-18.