Frequently Asked Questions
If you own and operate your own VoIP or SIP gateways and want to do termination billing without a gatekeeper or softswitch, then yes, you need RADIUS.
RADIUS is an acronym for Remote Authentication Dial In User Service. There are many RADIUS servers available on the market; some turn-key, some not; some free, some not. WebCDR RADIUS is WebCDR's trademark for its hosted RADIUS service that is specifically tailored to address VoIP and SIP billing.
AAA is an acronym for Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting; the three primary functions of RADIUS. Of the three, WebCDR RADIUS currently offers only Accounting, the module that collects and stores CDRs from VoIP and SIP gateways for later billing by WebCDR Billing.
Each gateway has its own command set and control method. Cisco gateways use IOS command line commands to alter and save the running config. Quintum gateways use a Windows-based configuration tool provided by Quintum. In every case it's a simple matter of entering the IP addresses of WebCDR RADIUS’s two collection sites (California and Virginia), setting a few retry and retransmit values, and turning on RADIUS accounting.
RADIUS packets are packed binary and will take up about 2-3% of the bandwidth used for voice packets on a typical full gateway. Unless you are already at your bandwidth limit you won't even notice that RADIUS has been turned on.
No. When a gateway's retry, retransmit, and secondary server settings are properly set, any network capable of supporting commercial voice traffic will reliably transmit RADIUS packets. WebCDR RADIUS collects CDRs from gateways in the USA, South America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and Asia without incident or lost data.
Many gateways are RADIUS compatible but some are not. Consult your technical documentation. If your gateway is not RADIUS compatible then we cannot support it with WebCDR RADIUS. So-called Cisco-compatible gateways will need to be tested with WebCDR RADIUS as some RADIUS output is more compatible than others.
No, not at this time. WebCDR RADIUS reliably collects and stores CDRs, nothing more.
No, not at this time. Without WebCDR Billing we would not be able to count the minutes to determine your usage.
No, not at this time. But WebCDR Watchdog can email you when a customer has depleted a pre-paid deposit below a certain threshold.