ThinQ Brings Least Cost Routing to Toll-Free Numbers

A company called ThinQ is bringing least cost routing to toll-free numbers.  That’s a big deal, indicates ThinQ CEO Aaron Leon, because it can typically result in 50 to 70 percent savings for users of toll-free numbers.

“It’s a concept that’s so new that people don’t even know how to search for the term,” says Leon of five-year-old ThinQ.

There are 40 million toll-free numbers in the U.S. managed by more than 400 RespOrgs (the outfits that route toll-free calls across all of North America and use the Service Management System/800 database that was built in 1980s). That system, he says, has not changed since it came into existence. Yet, he adds, carrier networks and pricing change all the time.

With the ThinQ solution, companies with toll-free numbers can benefit from those changes and the array of available carriers, he explains. The company provides businesses with a single platform through which to access multiple carriers, and it manages the contracts with those carriers. ThinQ monitors calls at all times and can change carriers via the SMS/800 at any time to do call-by-call carrier selection based on pricing and whatever other parameters its customers deem important. As a result, it frees companies with toll-free numbers from the carrier lock-in that often occurs in these scenarios.

Call centers, competitive local exchange carriers, enterprises, and VoIP providers are among the kinds of customers to which ThinQ caters. It works with a variety of carriers – including AT&T, Comcast, iBasis, Level 3, Tata, Verizon, and Vodafone – whose services are available via its platform.

ThinQ serves more than 1,000 customers, and there are 80 million calls on its platform every day. The company initially was focused on turning its platform into an application that can be leveraged by Twilio users.