What is a carrier service provider

This one is background rather than a how-to. If you are choosing a voice provider, or you run an MSP and are deciding who to buy from, it is worth knowing which kind of company you are actually talking to.

Ten questions that identify a real CSP

A Carrier Service Provider operates in an exchange capacity. The line between a CSP and a reseller gets blurred constantly, so here is a concrete test. Ask your current provider whether they can answer yes to all ten of these. If they cannot, they are reselling somebody else's carrier service.

• Contributes to the Universal Service Administrative Company
• Is listed in the Robocall Mitigation Database
• Holds one or more OCNs
• Is a member of NPAC
• Has an FCC-issued FRN
• Has numbering authorization from the FCC to obtain number resources
• Is a member of BIRRDS/LERG and NANPA
• Is recognized by NECA as an IPES
• Is a member of the Number Pooling Administration
• Is a facilities-based provider

This is not an exhaustive list, and buying from a reseller is not automatically a bad decision. But if you are shopping for wholesale pricing and direct PSTN access, every middleman in the path adds margin. Two or more middlemen can also signal thin capital investment, which tends to show up later as poor redundancy or call quality.

A true CSP concentrates on number routing, porting, pooling, and the technologies around them such as fax and SMS/MMS. It generally will not sell you PBX support, voicemail, auto-attendants, or call queues.

What a carrier service reseller is

Almost every provider depends on other providers to route some calls; it is unusual for one carrier to originate and terminate a call entirely on its own network. That is normal and is not what makes a reseller.

A Carrier Service Reseller is a company that fails the ten-point test above but still claims to route calls between a PBX and the rest of the world. A CSR cannot hold numbers in the North American Numbering Plan, so it depends entirely on other carriers, sometimes its own competitors.

• A CSR resells both numbers and services from a CSP, because it cannot hold its own numbers.
• A CSR routes calls from a CSP through its own infrastructure and then to the customer.
• A CSP selling number access to another CSP is not a CSR situation. That is routine between carriers.

Where an MSP fits

An MSP works directly with the end user, supporting their network and phone system. That takes deep knowledge of network configuration and security, PBX platforms, handsets, routers, and switches.

An MSP can act as a CSR, but is rarely also a CSP — the scope of technology and regulatory work involved is enormous. Most MSPs rely on a CSP for direct access and number resources, and can work with that CSP directly.

Inserting a CSR between the MSP and the CSP raises retail cost for the customer and puts the account at risk. An MSP can avoid becoming a CSR entirely by white-labeling a CSP's products instead of routing calls through its own infrastructure.

Three models of carrier

ILEC

Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier. Existed before the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and once held regional monopolies. They carry heavy legacy infrastructure costs and generally target volume-based providers rather than end users, so buying direct is usually price-prohibitive. No new ILECs are possible.

CLEC

Competitive Local Exchange Carrier. Created by the 1996 Act to compete with the incumbents. CLECs build their own infrastructure but lean heavily on ILEC ingress and egress. Many launched in the early 2000s and many failed; the industry still depends on them for last-mile service in rural areas.

IPES

Internet Protocol Enabled Service provider. A newer FCC designation. As VoIP matured and the FCC brought interconnected VoIP under STIR/SHAKEN regulation, IPES companies gained number pooling and authorization, letting them compete directly with ILECs and CLECs.

Where Wiretap sits

Wiretap Telecom is a Carrier Service Provider and intends to keep that line clear. We work through MSP partners who provide direct support to our mutual customers, and we offer wholesale rates to MSPs alongside low retail rates to direct end users.

Our Core-MSP partner program removes the need for a CSR in the call path, which cuts out redundant technology, extra call hops, and the outages that come with them. We run a minimum of five-way SBC redundancy plus full geographic redundancy, in data centers inside the United States. We have been operating since November 2012, are debt free, and do not enter commercial agreements with PBX manufacturers or other CSPs.