Ribbon Toll-Free Routing Service
Ribbon’s cloud-hosted, Toll-Free Routing service is subscription-based, designed to provide the most cost-efficient way for originating carriers to handle toll free calls.
The service hosts a synchronized copy of the RouteLink database from Somos, the North American toll free number administrator. Advanced toll free number queries are supported by Ribbon’s Policy and Routing server (PSX) to identify the proper RespOrg for call termination.
With the PSX, the originating carrier can use a REST/HTTPS API-based query, rather than a more expensive SS7-based query to determine the proper routing. By using an API-based query and response it is possible to get the RespOrg ID, Carrier ID Code (CIC), Destination IP, and the FQDN for the RespOrg. Not only is this query less costly, but it delivers enough information to determine if direct routing to the RespOrg will be possible.
For carriers with many switches performing toll free number routing queries, the PSX provides a way to aggregate all those queries, reducing the complexity and cost vs using SS7-based queries.
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Toll-Free Routing Service - Call and Compensation Flows
With Toll-Free Routing service, an originating service provider can move from an expensive, and limited, SS7 query to an IP-based query as shown in the image above. With RespOrg ID, the CIC, Destination IP address and the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of the RespOrg, Ribbon's PSX will identify the lowest cost route to reach the proper RespOrg.
Ideally, the lowest cost route will be a direct route to the RespOrg, shown in the image below as a solid blue line. As can also be seen, the solid green line, represents the compensation flow that is direct to the originating service provider, thus helping maintain margins on this traffic.
If direct routing to a RespOrg is not possible the CIC, also returned in the toll free database response, will be used to reach next carrier, as is done today. Note: This call flow and the associated compensation flow are shown using the dashed blue and green lines.