VAS for you. Part One: Integrating Mobile and Virtual PBX
The vectors and development trends of the telecom services market have hardly changed since the first telephone line appeared: any new technology gradually captures the market, scales, improves, becomes a kind of standard, and continues until its development slows down. The next and logical stage in the life of innovation is the stage of reducing the explosive demand and the emergence of VAS (Value-added service), additional services that complement and sometimes seriously change the basic service itself. The appearance of VAS is almost always “good” and almost never “bad” for both the service provider and the user. Today we will talk about what a bright VAS future awaits cloud PBX services using the example of the rapidly gaining popularity of FMC technology.
The irresistible and mutual attraction of mobile communication and cloud telephony has been around for a long time. A cell phone is a mobile device that can do not only “Hello”, it is a device for universal communications, and a cloud PBX is not only a software analogue of Big Iron Brother, it is also a voice menu, smart call forwarding, call recording or online statistics . If you add a mobile component to a virtual PBX, then this convergent cloud telephone service immediately takes on a completely new, integrated, look. A fixed office phone that has learned to walk or ride the subway is able to solve most of the office problems that arise where employees do not sit still, but move a lot and intensively. A convective communication scheme, in which mobile and landline phones become part of the company's unified telephone network, it literally “changes” all business processes.
FMC technology itself has existed for several years, but all these years it has been a lot of big business with a huge branch network and a large number of employees and has been used only for reasons of savings in mobile communications. The last two or three years, FMC has been actively introduced in the SMB segment, largely due to the fact that cloud PBXs have appeared on the market, supporting FMC as an additional cloud telephony service, the VATAT user only needs to sign an agreement with the mobile operator or his reseller partner. ITooLabs cloud PaaS platform is one of the first cloud-based operator platforms that provided such support at the level of the communication core.
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Typical use of FMC in combination with the VATS is as follows
Employees of the office for internal and external communications are used both fixed and mobile, existing in a single number space. This means that short extension numbers are assigned to both cellular and office phones, and outgoing calls from all devices are routed to the PBX and only then to the PSTN, however, subject to certain dialing rules.
At first glance, there is no breakthrough in communications, but this is only at first glance. A closer look reveals many advantages at once.
Obviously, the integration of mobile communication and cloud PBX is an interesting and useful topic and now we will talk about how this is implemented on the PaaS platform of ITooLabs Communications Server and how this implementation makes life easier for our partner operators and their customers.
The introduction of FMC on the client side of a virtual PBX by the client itself is not a simple procedure, a trunk organization with a mobile operator is required, several service scenarios are required for correct signaling, the correct caller ID transmission is required, both for incoming and outgoing calls from cellular, requires adaptation of the rules set. Once we realized the whole utility of integrating mobile and office phones, we decided to include basic FMC support in our platform. After several months of development, the cherished button appeared in the super admin interface.
Now, our partner-operator, if necessary, can include support for FMC on the side of the client PBX with one click of the mouse and this means that the client’s life is greatly simplified: a minimum of shamanism and technical experiments. It should be noted that already several telecom operators successfully use the ITooLabs + FMC box integration when promoting their cloud services on the basis of our platform.
From the operator's point of view, the main difficulty is the implementation of the correct division of the entire FMC SIM card pool into groups, which are essentially separate subdomains (client PBX). It is clear that the short numbering of different customers will inevitably overlap and it is required to ensure the correct operation of many SIM cards in the global number space. Make it so that the short dialing of the classic internal number “100” on different PBXs is routed to the desired PBX, i.e. divide SIM cards into non-intersecting groups by adding a unique ID for each group (client).
With a classic FMC trunk with a mobile operator, unique identifiers of SIM cards come from the OSS switchboard, which are often their mobile numbers of the form 79, which works perfectly if the trunk is organized from a single virtual PBX, but if there are many such PBXs, then write a script for substituting numbers that converts short dialing on the client side into a sim card identifier with a group prefix (subdomain) understandable to the mobile operator and vice versa - to route an incoming call to a defined new SIM card in the PBX of a specific client.
In the process of developing the integration of ITooLabs and FMC, we managed to find the best way to solve this problem - when dialing a PSTN number or a short extension number, a unique 2 or 3 digit prefix is ​​added to the dialed number, which uniquely identifies the WATS client. When sending a dial-up to a trunk with a mobile operator, the short number is converted with a prefix into a format understandable to the “mobile phone” and the call goes to its destination. To be fair, it should be noted that the development of such a service script is not included in the basic configuration of IT-Labs, but we are ready to help everyone with the development and implementation of this solution.
A business that has chosen to integrate FMC and cloud PBX gets a completely transparent, in terms of use, solution. A business client is not required to do anything other than the choice of a cellular operator that offers services based on the FMC platform and a typical set up of internal lines, whose subscriber endings can equally well be softphones and IP phones and SIM cards. The VATS logic is completely unchanged and works according to the same rules for both fixed and mobile users. The real triumph of technology and the unification of two different technological solutions.
All calls are included in the statistics, can be heard and included in the reports on the choice of the client. For an FMC client, SIM cards are the usual extension numbers that can be used in all standard scenarios or cloud PBX reports.
One of the sought-after functions of our platform is the ability to match caller IDs from an employee’s or a company's department’s list that is allowed for the client and the extension. In combination with FMC SIM cards, this option allows you to implement many “smart” scenarios in which a call from a mobile phone occurs with the substitution of a certain number: couriers call with one CID, managers with another, administration with a third, etc. This is very convenient when there is a need to divide outgoing calls into groups with the subsequent possibility of returning a call to a missed call or when calls are sent to regional networks and should be released to the PSTN as calls with a local number. At the same time, all calls from cellular and office are charged at the tariffs of a single provider of voice services, i.e. at the rates of our partner operator. Thus, the traffic generated by the employees of the company-user of the virtual PBX increases significantly due to mobile users, which leads to a significant ARPU value. A part of the client’s expenses for mobile communication flows into the pocket of a fixed telephony operator.
The integration of mobile communication and cloud telephony is an unconditional trend of the last two or three years, a description of the possibilities of which is quite capable of becoming a topic for several voluminous posts. FMC as a Value-added service for a cloud PBX is a vivid example of how the combination of two communication technologies can stimulate demand for services in highly competitive markets. ITooLabs Communications Server is today one of the very few carrier PaaS platforms that support out-of-box FMC technologies and provide fast and easy service deployment, the demand for which is growing very rapidly and will continue to grow for a long time. The introduction of advanced VAS in cloud services is becoming one of the significant growth points of the telecom industry.
We plan to continue further publications describing all the benefits of using cloud PBX in combination with various VAS.
Continuation inevitably follows.
The irresistible and mutual attraction of mobile communication and cloud telephony has been around for a long time. A cell phone is a mobile device that can do not only “Hello”, it is a device for universal communications, and a cloud PBX is not only a software analogue of Big Iron Brother, it is also a voice menu, smart call forwarding, call recording or online statistics . If you add a mobile component to a virtual PBX, then this convergent cloud telephone service immediately takes on a completely new, integrated, look. A fixed office phone that has learned to walk or ride the subway is able to solve most of the office problems that arise where employees do not sit still, but move a lot and intensively. A convective communication scheme, in which mobile and landline phones become part of the company's unified telephone network, it literally “changes” all business processes.
FMC technology itself has existed for several years, but all these years it has been a lot of big business with a huge branch network and a large number of employees and has been used only for reasons of savings in mobile communications. The last two or three years, FMC has been actively introduced in the SMB segment, largely due to the fact that cloud PBXs have appeared on the market, supporting FMC as an additional cloud telephony service, the VATAT user only needs to sign an agreement with the mobile operator or his reseller partner. ITooLabs cloud PaaS platform is one of the first cloud-based operator platforms that provided such support at the level of the communication core.
')
Typical use of FMC in combination with the VATS is as follows
Employees of the office for internal and external communications are used both fixed and mobile, existing in a single number space. This means that short extension numbers are assigned to both cellular and office phones, and outgoing calls from all devices are routed to the PBX and only then to the PSTN, however, subject to certain dialing rules.
At first glance, there is no breakthrough in communications, but this is only at first glance. A closer look reveals many advantages at once.
- Forwarding to mobile disappears as a class. In the IVR scenarios or in the call-in scenarios of departments or employees, the short mobile number can be specified as a normal extension number. now the employee is always available, no matter where he is located, payments for call forwarding disappear, the cellular operator, as a rule, does not charge calls within the company. Substantial savings and convenience.
- All conversations, including conversations from mobile, are now recorded and placed in the statistics of the PBX. This feature is probably one of the most useful. At any time, you can see all office telephone activity in a single window of online statistics and this window is a familiar window of your cloud PBX, and not a multi-line detail obtained with a delay in the OSS Internet Assistant.
- Mobile and office employees use a single city number for incoming and outgoing calls. With incoming everything is simple - mobile phones with FMC SIM cards have become office phones, but with outgoing calls everything is much more interesting - when you call from a mobile, the client displays a single company number, not the mobile number of the manager. Than it is useful, we think, there is no need to explain: you can not worry about the fact that the client interacts with his cellular manager, bypassing the company's advertising numbers. Everything is under complete control.
- When VATC and CRM are integrated, additional “killer features” appear - the transaction history shows the client’s history of communication with the manager, including conversations from the cellular phone, you can route the incoming phone directly to the employee’s mobile phone, bypassing the long redirection scenarios that often cause the customer to hang up waiting for a response after the fifth beep.
- And a lot more that will require writing a large separate post.
Obviously, the integration of mobile communication and cloud PBX is an interesting and useful topic and now we will talk about how this is implemented on the PaaS platform of ITooLabs Communications Server and how this implementation makes life easier for our partner operators and their customers.
The introduction of FMC on the client side of a virtual PBX by the client itself is not a simple procedure, a trunk organization with a mobile operator is required, several service scenarios are required for correct signaling, the correct caller ID transmission is required, both for incoming and outgoing calls from cellular, requires adaptation of the rules set. Once we realized the whole utility of integrating mobile and office phones, we decided to include basic FMC support in our platform. After several months of development, the cherished button appeared in the super admin interface.
Now, our partner-operator, if necessary, can include support for FMC on the side of the client PBX with one click of the mouse and this means that the client’s life is greatly simplified: a minimum of shamanism and technical experiments. It should be noted that already several telecom operators successfully use the ITooLabs + FMC box integration when promoting their cloud services on the basis of our platform.
From the operator's point of view, the main difficulty is the implementation of the correct division of the entire FMC SIM card pool into groups, which are essentially separate subdomains (client PBX). It is clear that the short numbering of different customers will inevitably overlap and it is required to ensure the correct operation of many SIM cards in the global number space. Make it so that the short dialing of the classic internal number “100” on different PBXs is routed to the desired PBX, i.e. divide SIM cards into non-intersecting groups by adding a unique ID for each group (client).
With a classic FMC trunk with a mobile operator, unique identifiers of SIM cards come from the OSS switchboard, which are often their mobile numbers of the form 79, which works perfectly if the trunk is organized from a single virtual PBX, but if there are many such PBXs, then write a script for substituting numbers that converts short dialing on the client side into a sim card identifier with a group prefix (subdomain) understandable to the mobile operator and vice versa - to route an incoming call to a defined new SIM card in the PBX of a specific client.
In the process of developing the integration of ITooLabs and FMC, we managed to find the best way to solve this problem - when dialing a PSTN number or a short extension number, a unique 2 or 3 digit prefix is ​​added to the dialed number, which uniquely identifies the WATS client. When sending a dial-up to a trunk with a mobile operator, the short number is converted with a prefix into a format understandable to the “mobile phone” and the call goes to its destination. To be fair, it should be noted that the development of such a service script is not included in the basic configuration of IT-Labs, but we are ready to help everyone with the development and implementation of this solution.
A business that has chosen to integrate FMC and cloud PBX gets a completely transparent, in terms of use, solution. A business client is not required to do anything other than the choice of a cellular operator that offers services based on the FMC platform and a typical set up of internal lines, whose subscriber endings can equally well be softphones and IP phones and SIM cards. The VATS logic is completely unchanged and works according to the same rules for both fixed and mobile users. The real triumph of technology and the unification of two different technological solutions.
All calls are included in the statistics, can be heard and included in the reports on the choice of the client. For an FMC client, SIM cards are the usual extension numbers that can be used in all standard scenarios or cloud PBX reports.
One of the sought-after functions of our platform is the ability to match caller IDs from an employee’s or a company's department’s list that is allowed for the client and the extension. In combination with FMC SIM cards, this option allows you to implement many “smart” scenarios in which a call from a mobile phone occurs with the substitution of a certain number: couriers call with one CID, managers with another, administration with a third, etc. This is very convenient when there is a need to divide outgoing calls into groups with the subsequent possibility of returning a call to a missed call or when calls are sent to regional networks and should be released to the PSTN as calls with a local number. At the same time, all calls from cellular and office are charged at the tariffs of a single provider of voice services, i.e. at the rates of our partner operator. Thus, the traffic generated by the employees of the company-user of the virtual PBX increases significantly due to mobile users, which leads to a significant ARPU value. A part of the client’s expenses for mobile communication flows into the pocket of a fixed telephony operator.
The integration of mobile communication and cloud telephony is an unconditional trend of the last two or three years, a description of the possibilities of which is quite capable of becoming a topic for several voluminous posts. FMC as a Value-added service for a cloud PBX is a vivid example of how the combination of two communication technologies can stimulate demand for services in highly competitive markets. ITooLabs Communications Server is today one of the very few carrier PaaS platforms that support out-of-box FMC technologies and provide fast and easy service deployment, the demand for which is growing very rapidly and will continue to grow for a long time. The introduction of advanced VAS in cloud services is becoming one of the significant growth points of the telecom industry.
We plan to continue further publications describing all the benefits of using cloud PBX in combination with various VAS.
Continuation inevitably follows.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/281304/
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