Little Phone Cards

If you have friends or relatives or have business contacts in Iran, then you will have to make frequent long distance calls to Iran. As everyone knows, long distance calls are very expensive, particularly when it is made through land line or mobile phones. Therefore, the best alternative is to switch over to Phone Cards.

These are like Credit Cards where the caller pays the face value of the card to the service providing company. With every call made, the credit balance gets reduced. The caller is frequently informed of the balance available so that he can refill the same. By this he gets continuous connectivity. It is very easy to purchase because it available in most of the retail outlets which a person normally visits. It can be purchased online also.

There are Iran Calling Cards which have most competitive rate plans. Those who make frequent calls to this country are offered special rates. Sometimes, these frequent callers are also offered some gifts by the calling companies. The long distance calling companies have multi lingual helpline to help the visitors of Iran. The helpline is available 24/7. Those who frequently visit this country or stay there for considerable time would purchase a SIM in Iran so that all calls made to Iran would be treated as domestic call. This would result in great savings.

Before purchasing the card, the caller should ensure that the purchase is made from a reputed company who has proven quality in connectivity. The caller will have the option to change over to a different tariff plan without affecting the balance available in the card.

Those who care for economy in their telephone expenses prefer to use Phone Cards. It is not only economy, it is connectivity. The calling companies have such a net work and upgraded mechanism that the caller need not use his phone book or pocket diary to know the lengthy numbers for making long distance calls. The frequently calling numbers can be registered with the company and once he dials the number, the menu takes him to the appropriate area so that he can choose the number he would like to call. He is connected, immediately. By this, the caller saves the time in searching for the number and then dialing it. There is also no chance of wrong dialing.

Now, speaking about the cost, a call through Phone Card saves the cost by about 50 to 80%. That is a great savings.

What are these Cards and where are they available? These are just like credit cards. The caller pays the service provider in advance for the calls he would make later. For every call made, the credit balance gets reduced. After utilizing the balance, the caller is at liberty to replenish it by buying additional calling time from the company. He can buy card and replenish it online or through the helpline of the company. Payment can be made through Debit or Credit Card. It can be bought from any retail outlets like pub, grocery shops, petrol bunks, news paper distributer, bars etc.

Most of the service providers have unique tariff structures which are designed to suit various sections of the people. So, one can choose the tariff structure that suits him.

Why people flock to buy a Calling Card instead of post paid or paying telephone bills on monthly basis?  There are reasons for it:

1. Cost is the first reason.  A calling Card is the cheapest way for making international call.  There are many service providers and each of them has a wide range of rate structure.  Many of the cost structures will have some unique features, like special rate for calls made to some countries or regions etc.   This gives the caller lot of options to choose from.   Further, there is no hidden cost and there is no minimum deposit as well.  This by itself a great savings.  With every call, the credit balance in the card gets reduced which compels the caller to limit his call to the issue on hand rather than engaging in unnecessary discussion.

2. Help line is another issue involved in making long distance call.  Most of the service providers have effective help line which is available 24/7.  The help line is so effective, that the caller has the option to register the telephone numbers which he would frequently call.  This ensures speedy connection and there are chances of wrong dialing etc.   Although many cards have validity from the date of its purchase, there are provisions to transfer the balance in one card to the other.

3. Some service providers offer trial period.  Further, the reliability of the service provider has to be verified before hand.  Apart from this, the quality of connectivity is yet another factor which has to be ascertained before hand.

MPLS is widely recognized as the most modern approach to providing the network functionality required by VoIP and other real-time applications. MPLS combines layer 2 and layer 3 technologies to support a mix of services. From the lower-layer ATM and PSTN technologies, MPLS has borrowed the concepts of simple label lookup-based packet forwarding, a-priori out-ofband forwarding path allocation, and service-time resource commitment. From the layer 3 IGP and Differentiated Services QoS framework, MPLS borrows the concept of advertising network topology and link attributes and providing multiservice forwarding paths to mitigate network complexity and enhance scale.

Traffic Engineered MPLS technologies have been designed from the start to address the complexities and high availability requirements of carrier-grade VoIP and other premium services. Fast re-route, auto-bandwidth provisioning, and virtual path TE tunnels are some of the MPLS capabilities that guarantee the high level of quality and reliability that we expect from telephony services.

MPLS defines label-switched paths, which are simple uni-directional forwarding paths constructed by wrapping ATM, IP, and other transport protocols packets in MPLS frames. MPLS identifies each frame with a label. The ingress label edge router (LER) provisions the labels and distributes them to label switching routers (LSR) using a signaling protocol such as LDP or Resource Reservation Protocol-traffic engineering (RSVP-TE) prior to enabling transport across the path. The label distribution process involves an automated sequence of resource requests and acknowledgements that create a path between two points in the network. When using RSVP-TE, QoS parameters may be specified as a requirement to each LSR. When acknowledged, these QoS parameters represent an agreement to provide that level of QoS, or FEC, to packets forwarded along the path.

Service providers can construct customized LSPs that support specific application requirements. Network managers can design LSPs to minimize the number of hops, meet certain bandwidth requirements, support precise performance requirements, bypass potential points of congestion, direct traffic away from the default path selected by the IGP, or simply force traffic across certain links or nodes in the network.

An important benefit of the label-swapping forwarding algorithm is its ability to take any type of user traffic, associate it with an FEC, and map the FEC to an LSP that has been specifically designed to satisfy the FEC’s requirements. Adding DSCP support to the MPLS network allows the network to populate a single LSP with multiple FECs.

The MPLS-TE approach also enables network administrator to provision MPLS fast reroute (FRR) paths for LSPs and associated backup paths while minimizing physical LSR overlap between primary and backup paths. FRR limits path outage times to milliseconds by pre-negotiating resource borrowing from LSR neighbors and localizing the event signaling that implements the FRR operation.

Deploying technologies based on label-swapping forwarding techniques offers network administrators precise control over traffic flow in their networks. This unprecedented level of control results in a network that operates more efficiently and provides more predictable service.

Source: Juniper Networks, Inc. White Paper