Migrating ViciDial from Per-Minute to Flat-Rate: The Technical and Financial Checklist

Why the Migration Makes Financial Sense First

Before touching any config, confirm the migration math. On a per-minute model, your telecom cost scales linearly with talk time. On flat-rate, it is fixed per seat regardless of dials or connected minutes.

A worked example for a 60-agent predictive floor:

• Per-minute baseline: $0.010/min average blended rate, 45 minutes talk time per agent per day, 22 working days/month
• Per-minute monthly cost: 60 × 45 × 22 × $0.010 = $594/month
• Flat-rate at $99/seat/month (US/CA): 60 × $99 = $5,940/month

At that volume, per-minute appears cheaper. But at 3× the dial volume:

• Per-minute at 3× volume: $1,782/month — and keeps scaling with every campaign you add
• Flat-rate at 3× volume: still $5,940/month — fixed

The flat-rate crossover point for a 60-agent floor at $0.010/min is approximately 900 agent-hours of talk time per month, or about 150 minutes per agent per working day. High-performance predictive floors regularly hit this. Floors that run 8-hour shifts with agents talking 50+ minutes per hour exceed the crossover point on day one.

Use the flat-rate break-even calculator to model your specific floor. For pricing inputs, see unlimcall.com/pricing/.

Phase 1: Audit Your Current Configuration

Before changing anything, document your current setup precisely:

Carrier inventory:

• How many SIP trunks are active?
• Which campaigns use which trunks?
• What concurrent session limit is provisioned on each trunk?

Number inventory:

• List every provisioned outbound number (caller ID) with its assigned campaign.
• Note which numbers are rented from your current carrier vs. numbers you own and port.

Codec and signaling config:

• What codec(s) are negotiated today? Check sip show peer <peername> for the active codec.
• Is your Asterisk doing any transcoding? If so, identify the codec pairs.
• Authentication method: IP-auth or registration?

Campaign-level CID assignments:

• Screenshot or export the CID configuration for every active campaign.

This audit takes 30–60 minutes but eliminates surprises during cutover.

Phase 2: Provision the New Trunk (Parallel, Not Replacement)

Set up UnlimCall as a second carrier in ViciDial Admin before decommissioning your existing carrier. This is a parallel-run approach:

1. Create the new carrier in ViciDial Admin (see connecting ViciDial to a flat-rate SIP trunk for the full config walkthrough).
2. Provision the SIP peer in Asterisk alongside the existing peer — do not remove the old peer yet.
3. Assign the new carrier to one low-risk test campaign (high volume, tolerant list, disposable lead set).
4. Run the test campaign for 1–2 business days. Compare CDR metrics: answer rate, talk time, audio quality complaints, disconnect rate.

If the test campaign performs comparably to the same campaign on the old trunk, proceed to Phase 3.

Phase 3: Number Porting and CID Migration

Determine which of your current outbound numbers are:

• Rented from current carrier: these cannot be ported unless the carrier supports porting of rental numbers. Most do not. Plan to provision new numbers from UnlimCall and update your campaign CIDs.
• Numbers you own: these can be ported via a Letter of Authorization (LOA) to UnlimCall. Porting takes 5–10 business days for standard US/CA numbers.

For campaigns using rented numbers, the migration sequence is:

1. Provision replacement numbers from UnlimCall for each campaign.
2. Warm the new numbers for 3–5 days before they carry full production volume (lower initial dial rate to establish a clean reputation baseline).
3. Update the campaign Outbound CID in ViciDial Admin to the new number.
4. Monitor answer rate on the new number for 48 hours before decommissioning the old.

Phase 4: Campaign-by-Campaign Trunk Migration

Migrate campaigns one by one, not all at once. Migration sequence by risk level:

1. Low risk first: campaigns with non-sensitive lists, high answer rates, flexible timing.
2. Medium risk: campaigns with warm lists, moderate volume.
3. High risk last: campaigns with tight compliance requirements, sensitive verticals, or lists that are difficult to re-engage if damaged.

For each campaign migration:

1. Update campaign carrier assignment in ViciDial Admin.
2. Confirm the dial plan is updated if it references the old carrier by name.
3. Monitor the first 500 calls on the new trunk for error rate, audio quality, and CDR completeness.

Do not migrate all campaigns on the same day. Spread Phase 4 across 1–2 weeks.

Phase 5: Billing Model Transition

Per-minute billing generates a variable monthly invoice. Flat-rate generates a fixed monthly invoice. Inform your finance team of this change before it appears on statements. The key points:

• The flat-rate bill does not fluctuate with call volume — campaigns running at 150% capacity in a good month cost the same as campaigns running at 70%.
• There are no overage charges per minute. If you add a large short-term campaign, the only cost increase is if you add seats for new agents.
• Daily billing is available at monthly rate ÷ 20, for campaigns that are seasonal or project-based.

Phase 6: Decommission the Old Trunk

Once all campaigns are migrated and performing stably for 5+ business days on the new trunk:

1. Set the old carrier to Inactive in ViciDial Admin.
2. Remove or comment out the old peer from sip.conf/pjsip.conf.
3. Reload Asterisk: asterisk -rx "sip reload".
4. Cancel your old carrier contract, noting any notice period requirements.
5. Update your internal documentation and runbooks to reflect the new carrier.