While direct inward dialing (DID) numbers are designed to assist wholesale service providers of VoIP communications to connect to the PSTN, they also cast a wider net bringing with it the potential ability to connect SIP, instant messengers and social community portals.

 

The range of consumers in this space varies greatly from SMBs and SMEs to students, families and entrepreneurs; each with  the ability to connect to the traditional PSTN through VoIP networks. 

 

Most businesses have several incoming telephone numbers used for specific purposes, and there is often an individual telephone number for each user in a system. At the same time, home telephones usually each have a different pair of wires and for obvious reasons that would not work in the business environment.

 

And that, in part, is why DID was invented; as a way to use a limited number of physical phone lines to handle calls to different published numbers. When using DID, the phone company uses DID signaling to identify the number they are about to connect within a business' PBX (News - Alert) .

 

DID numbers from the PSTN networks are made available through VoIP network providers and are assigned to a gateway in a VoIP network. The gateway can route calls that are incoming from PSTN over an IP network (normally using SIP and/or IAX2 signaling protocols) to the intended VoIP end-user.

 

These calls that begin in a VoIP network will appear to users on PSTN from one of the assigned DID numbers.

 

“But what does this do for anyone?” asks Suzanne Bowen, CEO of DIDX, a wholly owned subsidiary of Super Technologies

 

It, she explains, opens the opportunity for local service providers to offer VoIP services. In turn, end-users and resellers of the wholesalers directly access VoIP services such as global local DID numbers.

 

The DIDX (DID exchange) platform enables users to sell and/or purchase DID phone numbers of any country in the world. In 2005, with the launch of the company’s many international services, Super Technologies, Inc. saw the need for an international provider, or exchange of DID numbers. There was none. So the company created DIDX.

 

DIDX provides the opportunity to help jumpstart the birth and renewal of success for a VoIP service provider of any size, according to Bowen.

Those who benefit most from the offering are ISP's, cable providers, wireless operators, social and business networking sites, CLECs, ILECs, RLECs and mobile operators, according to Bowen.

“It's a quick and smart way for service providers to assist their users to expand their business markets and assure customer stickiness. A phone number is one of the important pieces of one's identity,” said Bowen. “They place anyone in a position to start receiving phone calls from those they care about most: customers, remote offices, suppliers and research partners via a "virtual office" and family and friends via DID/DDI.”

 

Users can find out information about companies such as EtoneConnect, Peerant, Speechphone, NxVoice, Improcom, EglaCorp, ZipDX LLC, Jazinga, Simton (News - Alert) Communications, MaxTelecom, CallthePlanet, ConversaTel, SACS International, IP Solutions, IPTouch, Chapo Wireless, Voipswitch, VoiceServe and other IP communications service providers.