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Although the methods by which to
make profits in the termination business are more
straightforward than in the prepaid calling card
business, there are still some general practices that
we recommend to ensure that your company is
profitable.
Maintain a High Quality Voice
In the termination business, if the
voice quality of your service is poor, you will not be
able to sell it. For list of concerns that your
customers will have regarding the quality of your
service, please refer to the section of this document
entitled “Connecting to Long Distance Providers” on
page 7.
Sell for More than You Pay
The heading of this section may seem
self-explanatory and maybe even insulting, but there
is a reason we remind you to sell your services for
more than you pay. When calculating the cost of your
termination, it is extremely important to consider the
cost of your Internet service, your telephone lines,
your co-location space, local and long distance
charges, and any technician salaries that you may be
paying. For example, if your total monthly expenses
are $5000, and you are terminating 250,000 minutes of
VoIP traffic per month, you should add 2 cents per
minute to your per-minute cost.
Collect, Collect, Collect
In many cases, whole termination is
provided to customers as a postpaid service. We
recommend that you do some research on any company
that is proposing to send postpaid traffic to you. If
you do not feel comfortable accepting postpaid traffic
from this customer, propose prepayment or use an
escrow service. Remember, most companies that fail in
the termination business fail because they cannot
collect the money that is owed to them. |
Another surefire method of obtaining
traffic is to become a member of Arbinet (www.arbinet.com),
which is an exchange of long distance providers and
companies that are originating calls. Arbinet
essentially handles the task of finding companies to
send you traffic. Presently, the Arbinet membership
fee is approximately $15,000.