Previously, we wrote a post explaining that A2Billing is no longer supported. As a result, we received many inquiries from VoIP providers who were searching for a better alternative to their outdated A2Billing systems. As a solution, we proposed MOR, a more powerful and reliable class 4/5 softswitch for managing VoIP billing and routing more efficiently. You can find a comparison between MOR and A2Billing here.

One of the companies that was experiencing challenges with its A2Billing system was Dial123 Ltd. This is a leading prepaid international calling service provider in the UK that offers cheap international calls from UK mobile or landline numbers. Its value-added services include:

Free sign-ups
Easy top-up with PayPal or a credit card
Instant local access numbers
Transparent billing with a facility to track balances online

Dial123 was affected by the end-of-life A2Billing notice, so it quickly needed to migrate to another softswitch that would support the Quick Forwards functionality.

Quick Forwards

The main advantage of Quick Forwards is that a limited number of DIDs can be shared and used to forward calls to different numbers. When someone calls a DID, their call is forwarded to a number set up in their user portal. These numbers can be different for each user for the same DID, and they can be easily changed. Instead of dialing directly, the user dials a DID number, which is then automatically forwarded to the final call recipient. Both connections have competitive prices, so this method allows individuals and businesses to make low-cost international calls.

Here’s a practical example of how this works. Suppose we have the DID +44 0000 000000 (an international UK number) assigned to Quick Forwards and we have two users:

User A with Caller ID +44 1111 111111
User B with Caller ID +44 2222 222222

Each of these users can set where to forward their calls, for example:

User A sets theirs to forwards to +1 202 555 0000 (international USA number)
User B sets theirs to forwards to +34 000 000 000 (international Spain number)

Here’s what happens next:

When User A dials DID +44 0000 000000, their caller ID +44 1111 111111 is checked. As the user is recognized, the call is automatically forwarded to +1 202 555 0000.
When User B also dials DID +44 0000 000000, their caller ID +44 2222 222222 is checked. Again, the user is recognized, so the call is automatically forwarded to +34 000 000 000.

The result of integrating the user portal with MOR

Dial123 signed up for the pilot project to see if MOR was a good fit for them. During the evaluation, the company found all the functionality it needed, so it decided to migrate from A2Billing to MOR. Some data were imported via CSV files (read more about importing data to MOR here), and Dial123’s user portal was integrated using the MOR API.

Here’s the result: