Least Cost Routing (LCR) refers to choosing the best path for outbound phone calls (also known as termination) based on the lowest available cost for the route between the caller and the destination.
How Does an LCR Work?
Put simply, an LCR is software that uses machine learning to always find the least cost route for your phone calls. All the major carriers, and even some enterprise firms and contact centers, operate a least cost routing tool of some kind in an effort to save money, route around outages, and provide redundancy in case of a service outage.
An LCR is only as smart as the rate decks that have been loaded into it, with the deck listing the routes for every known route across all supported voice carriers in its memory. Every rate deck is composed of the sixth and seventh digit of the phone number being called, which is known as NPA-NXX and NPA-NXX-X. In technical terms, a phone number is known as a DID, for Direct Inward Dial.
There is more than one cost to take into account based on where the call originates and terminates. For an interstate call, the caller and destination are in different states. For an intrastate call, both are in the same state.
In less than a second, the LCR will evaluate the best call route between start and finish, awarding the routes between the two with the lowest rate with the call.
Why is Using an LCR a Good Idea?
Traditional call routing methods are inefficient and costly. That is why we developed the Commio LCR (what we now call Intelligent Call Routing) more than a decade ago. It’s an innovative, cloud-based technology that combines the power and performance of every major voice carrier in a single intelligent call-routing platform. With a SIP connection, our partners enjoy higher-quality domestic, toll-free, and international voice performance, complete routing control, greater transparency, and automated cost-savings in a platform that redefines how businesses can route their calls.
We’re also the only cloud communications provider offering toll-free least-cost routing, harnessing the power of all five toll-free service providers for total redundancy, savings, and control. Learn more about how our TF LCR was developed from Michael Tindall, our co-founder.
First, select your preferred carriers, routing parameters, call limits, dynamic failovers, etc. and you are ready to start pointing traffic our way.
Once you have customized your settings, simply point your switches to our LCR and it does the rest. Our technology was purpose-built to give you the peace of mind that your traffic is being handled correctly and per your specifications.
Real-time CDR monitoring and SIP tracing tools allow you to easily review and improve your calling performance within the platform. The time-consuming, back and forth game of swapping traces and examples with carriers via email is over.
Create a custom-tailored communications solution to fit your business’ needs with our LCR. Learn more today.
