There are many factors to consider when determining how to select the perfect DID (Direct Inward Dialing) origination provider.

The variety of questions you may face include: the footprint, prices of DID, various DID features, the needs of local businesses or residents to whom you are selling, whether to purchase per minute or per port, and characteristics of the company.

“You want someone who has the coverage you are looking for,” Jason Tapolci, president of VoIP Innovations (News - Alert), said in a recent TMCnet podcast. “If you’re a national provider, it’s best to look for national coverage. In a certain niche or certain region, you might want to look for somebody who is in that area ... You don’t need the bigger wholesale provider that is nationwide.”

There is also a question of whether to go with per minute or per port billing. Per minute usage means you are billed for each minute of a call – you pay for what you use, TMCnet said. A per port model requires you to determine the number of concurrent call attempts at peak hours and to purchase enough port to cover these calls.

“At the beginning you want to purchase per minute until you reach aggregation level of 5,000 minutes per port,” Tapolci added. “If more experienced, buy per port.”

You also need to look at both non-recurring costs, such as one-time fees, and monthly recurring costs, such as fees billed each month, he added.

There are also characteristics of an individual company.

“The most important part is to look at the company itself,” Tapolci said. Some considerations include: does a company have 24/7 customer support; is billing on time; can bills be audited; and is there transparency. “Billing … continues to be the Achilles heel for the VoIP industry,” he explained in a whitepaper.

Look at each bill in-depth to understand what and for when you are being charged.

Also, remember that DID origination offers telephone numbers for calling into a company’s private branch exchange (PBX (News - Alert)) system, TMCnet said. It provides individual phone numbers for each person or workstation without requiring a physical line into the PBX for every possible connection.

The provider should have the mixture of correct coverage, price and quality, Tapolci said in the recent company whitepaper.

“Customer support and services is the number one goal for our company,” Tapolci added. “It shows …our happy customers.”

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