The traditional method of DID provisioning, where service providers purchase blocks of numbers and then sell individual DIDs to customers, is quite inefficient. That’s why companies like DIDWW and DIDX developed infrastructure for on-demand DID provisioning, allowing your customers to choose individual numbers when needed and for the desired duration. This approach is especially useful for international numbers, as it is more cost-effective than buying number blocks in advance.
On-demand DID provisioning allows end users to browse online the complete inventory of DID numbers available on the DID provider side. When a customer picks a number, the number is assigned on the DID provider side and provisioned to PortaBilling (e.g., as an alias to an existing account). When the customer decides that they no longer need the number, the alias is removed or the account ID is changed, and the DID is released on the DID provider side. This gives you the ability to offer a wide variety of different DID numbers to the end user and only be charged by the DID provider for numbers actually used by your customers.
Interconnection with DID providers
All major DID providers offer some type of API that can be used to query, reserve, and release DID numbers. Since APIs vary across DID providers, the system uses plug-in modules – similar to those for payment systems – making it easy to add new providers in the future.
Integrations with DIDWW ( http://www.didww.com) and DIDX ( https://www.didx.net) providers are currently available.
Other PortaSwitch service providers can also give you on-demand access to their DID inventory, becoming your DID providers.
Combined DID provisioning
To generate additional revenue, you can grant customers access to both your inventoried DIDs and on-demand DIDs of external DID providers.
To enable this functionality, the administrator adds the [DID]MixedSources=1 option for the WebCustom group on the Configuration server.
DID exchange among service providers
To sell more DIDs, you can grant other service providers access to your DID inventory and allow them to provision your DID numbers on demand via the API. This enables you to become an active player in the wholesale DID market.
How it works
To grant other service providers access to your DID inventory and provision the numbers, you need to create a customer in your PortaSwitch for every such DID buyer (referred to as "DID Customer"). As DID customer accumulates charges for all DID numbers provisioned from your system, it must have the DID pricing batch assigned. The DID customer consequently defines you as their DID provider and configures on-demand DID provisioning in their system.
The routing among your systems must be configured beforehand.
As before, the DID management itself is done within the DID inventory. When the DID customer provisions a number from your DID pool, the DID number is assigned to the DID customer and acquires In Use status. The DID customer is charged according to their DID pricing batch. If a DID number is no longer required, it is released from the DID customer and is returned to your DID pool.
