{{multiple issues|essay-like=October 2009|notability=October 2009|original research=October 2009|tone=October 2009|unreferenced=October 2009|wikify=October 2009}}
Introduction
Whey IP Telephony was started, a telecommunication business was begin to migrate to voip area. This gives possibility to open new era of business - voip business
Fundamentals
VoIP business can be divided for two large categories – wholesale and retail. The most popular is wholesale business, because it is the simplest way to earn money by trading VoIP traffic at wholesale. Wholesaler profits are generated from difference of buying prices and selling prices. Thus, the main target is to find the cheapest price for some route and to sell it more expensive as you can! A VoIP wholesaler, which buys traffic from other wholesaler and then sells them to other wholesaler, is named as Simple Wholesaler. The start-point of a route for traffic is named as Origination Point. As usual, originator is a retailer-company, which sells prepaid-cards, has call shops, offers IP-Phone services etc. The end-point of a route for traffic is named as Termination Point. And a terminator is not only retailer, but it could be also a wholesaler. Thus, a wholesaler, which makes a termination point, is named as Termination Wholesaler.
In order to terminate traffic wholesaler needs to have an entrance to some PSTN or cellular network. This entrance is called as an access channel to a public network and forms by one or several gateways. A gateway transforms your compressed data packets to usual voice, which can be transmitted in a public switched telephone network (PSTN). All VoIP distributors have a point, where the whole of traffic pass thru. This point is named as Routes Management Point (RMP) and is using by wholesaler for routes management, configuring, controlling and billing. A RMP as usual a collocated server, located wherever in Internet, with special software. This software called SoftSwitch and usually represents routes management system and usually a billing platform.
Technical description
A wholesaler is always interested in purchasing a gateway, by which he could transforms to a termination wholesaler.
A gateway is characterized by its carrying capacity. Gateway’s capacity is measured by amount of streams. There are E1 and T1 streams in gateways. E1 is a designation, which used in Europe, T1 – in USA. One E1 stream signifies by itself an ability to transmit 30 simultaneous calls and T1 – 24 simultaneous calls. As a result, a gateway with more E1 streams has more capacity and as a result – more expensive. The destination of calls could be a PSTN or cellular network, so dependently on network type you will need to install the gateway in certain network.
Example of business plan.
Bellow you can see an example of business plan for wholesale voip business.