For many of us, opening up a phone bill can be a painful experience. We see the amount the phone companies are charging us, and we immediately go into “sticker shock.” Fortunately, there is a way to address the ever-increasing bills: least cost routing. But, for those who do not know what least cost routing is, or who want to know more about least cost routing and its benefits, there is a handy YouTube (News - Alert) video that explains things quite nicely.

The video, which includes narration and handy diagrams, explains a little about how least cost routing works. First, it shows how some calls can be routed through one carrier while other types of calls can be routed through another carrier, resulting in significant cost savings, estimated at 25 to fifty percent savings or more.

While it may sometimes appear that one particular carrier has the best rates, a good least cost routing solution is able to identify when traffic should be routed to different carriers, based on call length, region and other factors.

By taking advantage a dominant carrier in a particular region, a company can experience significant cost savings, as most of the business to business traffic can be routed through that carrier, resulting in much lower per-minute rates than a company might get if it relies in a single carrier only for all national calls.

For companies, like call centers, who deal with hundreds of thousands of call minutes per month, savings of a few fractions of a penny on a per-minute rate can result in ultimate savings of tens of thousands of dollars. In tough economic times, when every dollar counts and every company is looking for a competitive edge, least cost routing solutions make sense for companies that already rely on SIP-based communications.