PortaOne has published the New Features Gide for the Maintenance Release 16. This document provides information for PortaOne users regarding new features that will appear in PortaSwitch MR16.

Below is a short summary of what you can find in the document.

Service Type Vs. Service

The introduction of this new concept even further develops PortaBilling100 as a converged billing platform. PortaBilling100 enables ITSPs to offer multiple services to their customers while providing clear transaction and invoice information.

A service type is a physical service provided to an end-user; at the same time a service is a description of the user’s activities from a business perspective.

Multiple Tariffs for Resellers

Maintenance Release 16 introduces an ability to apply multiple tariffs to the same resellers. This allows to:

• Charge resellers different rates based on their sub-customers’ products.
• Apply different charges based on the service used by the reseller’s sub-customers.
• Apply different rates based on the service scenario.

Product Cloning

Product configuration is an important step that specifies all accessibility entries to ensure the correct functionality. To minimize the amount of work to create a new product, PortaBilling100 allows to configure a new product as a clone of an existing one.

Account Aliases

The new MR16 includes a new feature called “account aliases” where an alias serves as a link or pointer to the main account. When a customer uses an alias ID for authentication, PortaBilling100 retrieves information about the main account and uses its balance, product type and other parameters for all further operations.

xDR Re-rating

MR16 introduces a re-feed alternative designed to fix the most common problem: incorrect pricing information in a tariff. Operating from the web interface, the administrator specifies the “original” (incorrect) tariff and the new “correct” tariff, and narrows the set of xDRs to be processed by time interval and specific customer.

Favorite Numbers Billing

This feature - when enabled for a specific account - allows to offer customers a “call friends & family cheaper”-type service.

ACLs for Resellers

The MR16 adds a new option now: the ACLs for sub-customers may be marked as ‘Visible To’ the reseller (or a group of resellers). Afterwards, the ‘Access only to ACLs visible to the reseller’ component is included into the ACL applied to the reseller. The resellers then will be able to assign to their sub-customers only the ACLs marked as “visible”.

Selective Call Processing

This feature allows defining a set of rules to be applied to every incoming call. Each rule may include a set of conditions based on the calling number status, called number condition or the time when the call is made. When an incoming call matches a certain rule, one of several possible call processing scenarios will be executed – for instance “reject call”, “forward this call to voicemail without ringing the phone”, “ring on the IP phone, but do not engage any of the follow-me destinations”, etc..

Click2dial

The MR16 now includes the SIP TAPI (Telephony Application Programming Interface) which is a driver that enables the SIP click2dial functionality for TAPI applications (like MS Outlook).

RTP Proxy Server

It is possible now with MR16 to transfer the RTP proxying function to a separate server for those systems where a high number of proxied calls is required.

This allows to efficiently prioritize transmission of IP packets carrying the voice media and prevent any resource-intensive operations on the SIP side from affecting the voice quality.

RADIUS Network Interface

MR16 supports the use of a separate network interface for communications with the billing system. This allows PortaSIP server to run the actual voice traffic via one network interface, while another network interface can be used for secure communications with the billing.

• Improved Auto-Attendant Controls that allow recording of a separate prompt when a user did not press any keys.
• Debit Card Application Improvements to run multiple instances of the debit card application on the same PortaUM server.
• The French language support for debit card application.
• Stand-by Server to improve reliability of the voicemail or auto-attendant service.
• Distributed Architecture that enables ITSPs to serve more customers with several PortaUM servers simultaneously.

Please refer to the New Features Guide for detailed information on the above topics. Our sales managers and the technical support team are always available to answer your questions as well.