Help Center

Getting started

Your Celvesta switch comes with two web panels. You manage everything in the Admin panel. Your own customers use the Customer portal to check their balance and calls.

1. Log in to the Admin panel

   Open the Admin panel address from your Celvesta welcome email and sign in with the username and password we sent you.

2. Change your password

   Go to System → Admin Users, open your user, click Edit, set a new password and save. Use a long password that you don't use anywhere else.

   If other staff need access, create a separate user for each person here instead of sharing one login.

3. Look at the Dashboard

   The Dashboard is the first page after login. It shows your current traffic and recent activity, so you can check at a glance that calls are flowing.

4. Know your plan limits

   Each Celvesta plan runs on its own server, with a set number of concurrent calls (CC) and calls per second (CPS):

   Starter	Up to 200 CC · 20 CPS
   Business	Up to 500 CC · 50 CPS
   Carrier	1,000+ CC · custom

   When traffic goes above your plan limit, the extra calls are rejected. If you are close to the limit often, contact Celvesta to move to a bigger plan. See all plans and prices.

5. Give a customer portal access

   Go to System → Customer Portal Logins and click New.

   Customer	The customer this login belongs to.
   Accounts	Which of their accounts they can see. Leave empty to show all of their accounts.
   Login / Password	What the customer types on the portal login page.
   Allowed IPs	Optional. Only these IP addresses can log in. Separate several with commas.

   Send the customer the portal address together with their login. You need to create the customer first (see Part 2).

Connecting traffic

Every call comes in from a customer, passes through your switch and goes out to a vendor. Before you can route calls, you create both sides: the company, its billing account, and its SIP gateway. Do these steps in order.

1. Create the companies

   Go to Billing → Contractors and click New. Create one contractor for each company you work with.

   • For a company that sends you calls, tick Customer.
   • For a company you send calls to, tick Vendor.
   • Make sure Enabled is ticked. A company can be both customer and vendor.

2. Create a billing account for each company

   Go to Billing → Accounts and click New. Choose the contractor and give the account a name. A new account always starts at a balance of zero.

   Min balance	For customers. If the balance falls below this, their calls are blocked. Use 0 for prepaid customers.
   Max balance	For vendors. Set it higher than the current balance, for example 100. If the balance goes above it, the vendor's routes stop being used.
   Origination capacity	Optional. Most calls this customer can send at the same time.
   Termination capacity	Optional. Most calls you can send to this vendor at the same time.

   Common mistake: a vendor account with Max balance left at 0. The vendor's routes will not be used and calls fail with no route.

3. Add the customer's gateway

   Go to Equipment → Gateways and click New.

   Contractor	The customer company.
   Enabled	On.
   Allow origination	On. This gateway sends calls to you.
   Allow termination	Off.

4. Add the vendor's gateway

   Go to Equipment → Gateways and click New again.

   Contractor	The vendor company.
   Enabled	On.
   Allow origination	Off.
   Allow termination	On. You send calls to this gateway.
   Host / Port	The vendor's SIP IP address and port, as given by your vendor.

   If your vendor gave you a tech prefix, add it in the gateway's number settings so it is put in front of every number you send.

5. Exchange IPs with both sides

   Send your switch's SIP IP address to your customer (they send calls to it) and to your vendor (they need to whitelist it). The customer's IP address is entered in Part 3, step 6.

Routing & rates

Routing decides which vendor gets each call and what you pay them. Rates decide what you charge your customer. Both match calls by number prefix, such as 1 for USA or 44 for the UK. The longest matching prefix wins.

1. Create a routing group

   Under the Routing menu, open Routing Groups and create one, for example Wholesale routes. A routing group is a folder that holds your routes.

2. Create a routing plan

   Go to Routing → Routing Plans and click New. Give it a name, choose the routing group from step 1, and pick a sorting method. LCR sends each call to the cheapest vendor first, then tries the next one if it fails.

3. Add routes (dialpeers)

   A dialpeer is one route: “send calls starting with this prefix to this vendor, at this cost.” Go to Routing → Dialpeers and click New.

   Prefix	The numbers this route covers, for example 1 or 44. Enter several prefixes separated by commas to create one dialpeer for each.
   Routing group	The group from step 1.
   Vendor / Account / Gateway	The vendor, their account and their gateway from Part 2.
   Initial rate	Your cost per minute for the first billing interval.
   Next rate	Your cost per minute after that.

   Add a dialpeer from a second vendor on the same prefix to get a backup route.

4. Create a rateplan

   Create a Rate Group first, then go to Routing → Rateplans, click New, name it (for example Standard) and add the rate group. Use different rateplans when different customers pay different prices.

5. Add your selling prices (destinations)

   Go to Routing → Destinations and click New. Enter the prefix, choose the rate group, and set the Initial rate and Next rate you charge per minute. Celvesta bills to 4 decimal places.

   Example. You pay your vendor $0.0120 for the first minute and $0.0100 per minute after. You charge your customer $0.0180 and $0.0150. For a 10-minute call:

   Customer pays: 0.0180 + 9 × 0.0150 = $0.1530
   You pay vendor: 0.0120 + 9 × 0.0100 = $0.1020
   Your profit: $0.0510

   On 1,000,000 minutes a month, a margin like this is about $5,100 profit.

6. Link everything with Customers Auth

   Customers Auth is how the switch recognises a customer's call by its IP address. Go to Routing → Customers Auths and click New.

   Customer / Account / Gateway	The customer, their account and their gateway from Part 2.
   Rateplan	The rateplan from step 4.
   Routing plan	The routing plan from step 2.
   IP	The customer's IP address the calls come from.

   Calls rejected with disconnect code 110? The switch could not match the call to a customer. Check the IP address in Customers Auth, and that the customer and account are enabled.

7. Add balance to the customer

   Go to Billing → Payments, click New, choose the customer's account and enter the amount. The balance must be above the account's Min balance, or calls are blocked.

8. Test before going live

   Go to Routing → Routing Simulation. Enter the customer's IP address, a port (for example 5060), a caller number and a destination number, then click Simulate routing. The result shows which route and price would be used, with a full log underneath. No real call is made.

Reports & CDRs

Every call creates a call detail record (CDR) with its time, numbers, duration, price and result. Use these pages to check quality, solve disputes and bill your customers.

What your customers see

In the Customer portal, your customers can view their balance, their own CDRs, active calls and call statistics, plus the IP addresses authorised for their account. They only ever see their own data.

Reading quality numbers

• ASR going down on one vendor usually means that route is failing. Move traffic to a backup dialpeer.
• ACD that is very short (a few seconds) can mean poor audio quality or false answers.
• Check the disconnect code on failed calls in CDR History. It tells you whether the call failed at your switch, at the vendor, or because of balance or capacity.

Glossary

CC

Concurrent calls. How many calls are up at the same moment.

CPS

Calls per second. How many new calls can start each second.

ASR

Answer-seizure ratio. The percentage of calls that are answered.

ACD

Average call duration of answered calls, in minutes.

CDR

Call detail record. One line of data for one call.

Prefix

The first digits of a phone number, used to pick a route and a rate.

Dialpeer

One route to one vendor for one prefix, with your cost.

Destination

One selling price to your customer for one prefix.

LCR

Least-cost routing. Try the cheapest vendor first.