Customer Sites

An IP Centrex environment configured in PortaBilling® can include one or more customer sites. A customer site defines a group of phone lines that are managed as a single entity and usually placed in a separate office building.

This allows you to apply certain configuration parameters or service restrictions to the accounts in that group.

Adding a New Site

If a customer has more than one location you can set the limitations for each location separately. To do this, create an independent site entry with specific options for each of the customer’s locations. Then assign these sites to the corresponding accounts. Note that even if no customer sites are created, there is the virtual default site in the system that includes all the accounts that have not been explicitly assigned to a customer site.

Field	Description
Site Name	Name for a group of accounts.
Limit Simultaneous Calls	Engage real-time checks of the number of concurrent calls made by accounts that belong to this site. When the specified number of concurrent calls has already been established (calls are in a “connected” state) and the account tries to place another call, that call will be rejected. Choose Customer’s default option to use the values defined at the customer level. NOTE: To enable the Limit Simultaneous Calls feature, activate the send_start_acct option for the corresponding PortaSIP instances on the Configuration Server. To increase the features accuracy, activate the allow_reauth option too. Note that these features may slightly increase the load on the billing engine.
Max Number of Simultaneous Calls	Allow only a specific number of concurrent calls (regardless of their type, such as incoming or outgoing) for accounts at this site.
Max Number of Incoming Calls	Allow only a specific number of concurrent incoming calls for accounts at this site.
Max Number of Outgoing Calls	Allow only a specific number of concurrent outgoing calls for accounts at this site.
Max Number of Forwarded Calls	Allow accounts of this site to forward a specific number of concurrent calls. This limit is only applied when calls are forwarded to external numbers.
Codec Connectivity Profile	Select a suitable codec connectivity profile that will be used for bandwidth allocation calculation. Every new call’s allocated bandwidth is calculated by considering a negotiated codec and its parameters to enable full use of the available bandwidth and block new calls if no more bandwidth is available.
Max Bandwidth	This allows you to configure the bandwidth utilization limitation to ensure that only an acceptable number of calls are allowed, in order to avoid severe degradation of the sound quality on calls in progress. The system plays a 'limit reached' warning when allocated bandwidth is used up. NOTE: Playing warning prompts requires an additional 8 Kbps of bandwidth. Therefore, set aside a certain amount of bandwidth (about 8 Kbps) when you define the bandwidth limit.
Max Incoming Bandwidth	This allows you to configure the bandwidth utilization limitation for incoming calls.
Max Outgoing Bandwidth	This allows you to configure the bandwidth utilization limitation for outgoing calls.
Location Information	This allows you to define customer’s permanent location for geo-IP fraud prevention.
Allowed Mobility	Select Stationary user (constant location) if this customer is not authorized to make calls from various countries (e.g. as a residential customer would make calls from his SIP phone). Calls made from any other country will be screened. The Roaming user (frequent location) option can be used for customers who travel frequently. In this case, a change in location would be considered acceptable.
Current Location	Select a user’s permanent location from the country list.
Additional Info	This option works if the user’s Current Location is set to France and contains the user’s location information that will be conveyed by PortaSIP® within the “P-Access-Network-Info” SIP header to comply with EU regulations. The value for this option must be defined in the GSTNR1R2C1C1C3C4C5XX format, where: GSTN is the network indication, R1R2 is the individual carrier code, C1C1C3C4C5 is the city code of the call’s origin, and XX are auxiliary digits (00 by default).
Dialing Rules	The following options are available: Disabled – This deactivates the dialing rules for accounts within this site. Enabled – This activates the dialing rules for accounts within this site. Custom – This allows users to create and use their own sets of dialing rules.
Dialing Format	Select existing dialing format defined earlier or create a new one by clicking the Wizard icon. You can define new dialing rule settings on the IP Centrex page.
Translate CLI on outgoing calls	Allows outgoing calls to be translated based on the selected dialing format.
Translate CLI on incoming calls	Allows incoming calls to be translated based on the selected dialing format.
Sip Contact	Enable this feature to define the way a customer’s IP PBX registers to PortaSwitch®.
Use Registration of Account	This option is usually selected if a customer’s IP PBX uses a dynamic IP address for registration. When selected, it allows you to specify the account used for IP PBX registration as a SIP contact on the PortaSIP® server. The calls arriving to any DID numbers that belongs to the IP PBX and being provisioned as accounts in PortaBilling® will be routed to the IP address that is currently registered.
Account	Select the account used for IP PBX registration on the SIP server. Its contact information (i.e. IP:port) will be used by the PortaSIP® server to deliver incoming calls to the IP PBX directly.
Static Address	Enable this feature if the customer’s IP PBX can’t perform SIP registration to PortaSwitch®.
Use Original CLD	Specify the destination number that calls will be routed to. If left blank, the number originally dialed will be used as the destination number.
Host	This contains the destination host the calls will be routed to. A customer’s IP PBX can be identified with one of the following options: A valid IP address (four numbers separated by points, e.g. 12.34.56.78). A valid domain name (e.g. pbx.example.com). A valid domain name with configured DNS SVR records. In this case, PortaSIP® will round-robin through them.
Transport	Select the transport protocol (either TCP or UDP) that is used to deliver incoming calls.