Managing rates online is very convenient for maintaining existing rate tables and for reference purposes. In the case of new price lists or major updates, the offline method is better.
The filter at the top of the page allows you to view rates depending on their effective from date or destination. The Effective From list allows you to define which rates to show:
To edit an existing rate, click the 
Edit
icon next to it to copy rate details into the form. Note that if a tariff
contains peak and off-peak rates there will be two rows of fields: the
top one is for peak rates, and the bottom one is for off-peak rates.
Usually you will enter rate data for each destination separately. However, if the tariff has a Destination Group Set defined, by clicking on G in the Destination column header you can switch into Destination Group mode. Now you can enter a destination group name (e.g. UK-Mobile) instead of a prefix, and the system will automatically create rates for all of the destinations in that group.
The Clean up Rates button allows you to remove rates that have an ‘effective from’ date set in the future.
The rates table may be prepared using a spreadsheet processor (e.g.
MS Excel) and easily imported into PortaBilling®. This is very convenient
if you are going to make many changes. For example, you might increase
all prices by 10%. To upload your rates file, click the 
Upload icon and proceed
on the Rate Upload page.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
Destination |
Destination prefix. May be entered directly, e.g. “47” for Norway; or you can access the destinations directory by clicking the Destination link. In the destinations directory pop-up window, you can search for the desired prefix by country name. |
Set Inter/Intra State / Set Normal Rating (only for the US destinations) |
Switches between normal and inter / intra state rates for US destinations.
Click Set Inter / Intra State if price per minute depends not only on the actual destination (area code and exchange), but also on whether the caller resides in the same state as the called party.
The following taxation plugins are supported in PortaBilling® to calculate customers’ taxes for the inter/intra-state calls:
|
Country |
Country corresponding to the current destination. |
Description |
A short description of the specified destination. |
|
This column is available only if there is at least one off-peak period defined in the system.
Specifies the off-peak period for this particular rate.
When there is no default period specified for the tariff, the column header displays the icon instead of the title. |
Type |
Specifies the off-peak period for this particular rate. |
Interval: First |
First billing unit in seconds. You can define this interval for peak and off-peak period separately. |
Interval: Next |
Next billing unit in seconds. You can define this interval for peak and off-peak period separately. |
Price: First |
Per minute price for first interval. You can define this price for peak and each off-peak period separately. |
Price: Next |
Per minute price for next interval. You can define this price for peak and each off-peak period separately. |
Effective From |
Exact time when the rate
becomes effective. Click the |
Rate Properties |
|
Delete |
Click the Delete icon to delete this rate. Only rates which are not yet active can be deleted. |
If you create a Routing type tariff, it will define the routing and termination costs for a connection to a vendor.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
Route Category |
You can split rates into categories such as “Premium,” “Cheap,” etc. and use these categories in routing plans. See the Route Categories section for more info. |
Preference |
Routing priority (0–10), higher values mean higher priority, 0 means do not use this rate for routing at all. See the Call Routing section of the PortaBilling Administrator Guide for more info. |
Huntstop |
If one of the routes has huntstop enabled, then all routes with a lower route category or preference will be ignored. |
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|
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PortaBilling® offers a simple solution for identifying and billing US Inter / Intra State VoIP traffic. In order to apply LCR properly and calculate call costs in accordance to rates applied by vendors, PortaBilling® determines whether a call is intra- or inter- state and applies the correct rate.
In a new environment by default the option of setup of the US Inter- / Intra- State rates is off. To activate it you are to click Enable US Intra-State on the tariff management web page.
In order for PortaBilling® to recognize whether the call is intra- / inter- state, you must specify whether the destination belongs to one of those categories by clicking the Set Inter / Intra State button.
NOTE: The activation of Inter / Intra State is possible only when the destination number starts with “1.”
Once the Inter / Intra option is set, you may specify the individual rates for these calls in the corresponding fields.
PortaBilling® offers a simple solution to identify and bill for SMS traffic. Since the majority of mobile carriers use MCC / MNC destination codes for rating, you can define your rates by using the same format in PortaBilling®.
NOTE: You can add rates for MCC / MNC codes only for tariffs with the Messaging services type of service and E.212 format selected.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
MCC/Country |
This is the mobile country code and the destination country. Select the MCC / country pair from the list. Start typing the code to narrow the search. |
MNC/Network |
This is the mobile network code and the destination mobile network. Select the MNC / network pair from the list. |
To combine both instant message exchange and SMS services for your users, add rates to their tariffs for special destinations MSGN, MSGNR or MSGNRX.
To add a rate for a special destination, do the following:
Click Add on the toolbar.
Select Custom from the MCC/Country list
Select the desired destination (e.g. MSGN) from the MNC/Network list.
Click Save.
Off-Peak Periods
Call Rating Formula – Indicates if this rate
uses a call rating formula.
No Call Rating Formula icon indicates
that there is no formula, thus old-style rating is used.
Click on the icon to define a call rating formula.
Call
Rating Formula icon indicates that the rate already
has a formula defined. Click on the icon to edit the call
rating formula wizard.
Payback
Rate – This means that the customer is credited
for using certain services, rather than paying for them
(e.g. the service provider receives the termination fee for
his own subscribers and wants to encourage
his users to receive more calls by passing on a
certain portion of these savings).
Hidden –
This means that the rate is excessive (e.g. there are usually
more than 500 rates for Argentina mobile because of different
prefixes). This flag does not affect usage of the rate by
the billing engine. It simply indicates that this rate may
be omitted when making a list of rates for the end user.
Discontinued – This means that the rate will
stop being active immediately or from the specified time-stamped
date. To deactivate the rate in the future, specify a certain
date and time in the Effective From field.
Forbidden –
This means that no calls are authorized for this particular
destination.