Carrier
A carrier is the provider that reaches the public telephone network on your behalf: it owns the numbers, connects the call and bills for it. Connect names one carrier per workspace for the network leg, and the carrier — not Connect — is the authority for what a call cost and how long it lasted.
What the carrier is responsible for#
- The number itself, and whether an inbound call reaches you at all.
- Connecting the call and reporting its progress — ringing, answered, busy, no answer, failed, cancelled, voicemail.
- The duration and the cost, which are written onto the call record from the carrier's own figures.
- Which capabilities exist at all: recording, transfer and SMS are the three that vary, and they vary by carrier rather than by plan.
That third point has a consequence worth stating. When a carrier's figures arrive late, they are applied last and they win, because the invoice will be reconciled against the carrier's numbers and not against Connect's. A duration that changes slightly after a call has ended is that arriving, not an error.
What is true of the live carrier today#
| Capability | Position |
|---|---|
| Inbound and outbound calls | Available |
| Call recording | Foundation — the capability is modelled and is not enabled on the live carrier |
| Transfer to a human | Foundation — a transfer can be queued; completing it is gated on the provider |
| Outbound SMS | Not carried by the live carrier; the Phone screen says so rather than offering a thread that cannot send |
None of these is a promise about a future carrier. They are the position now, and a page that described recording or completed transfer as something you can use today would be describing a different system. Where a workspace needs one of them, the constraint is the carrier's, and it is stated rather than worked around.
Carrier, SIP path, number, softphone#
- The realtime voice path
- A workspace can opt into a speech-to-speech engine that sits behind the same call. The carrier still carries the network leg; the engine changes how Connect speaks, not who connects the call.
- The number
- A number is what the carrier gives you. Two workspaces on the same carrier have different numbers, and the number is what an inbound call is matched on to find the right workspace.
- Softphone
- A person's browser registering as a line. The carrier's registrar is what it registers with — same carrier, different user.
- The provider in general
- The wider word. Use *carrier* only when the sentence is about the telephone network; a WhatsApp platform is a provider and never a carrier.
The protocols underneath — SIP for signalling, RTP for the audio, the PSTN the carrier bridges to — each have their own page under Technology reference, which is where to read what they are and exactly how Connect uses them.
Questions#
Can I bring my own carrier?
The telephony layer is written so that no module names a carrier: capabilities are declared rather than assumed. What a given workspace can connect is a configuration question rather than a code one, and the capability table above is what changes with the answer.
Why does a call's cost appear after the call?
Because the carrier reports it, sometimes after the call has ended. Connect's own estimate of what a call cost in model usage is a separate figure, metered separately — see call cost.
If the carrier says a call was answered, was it a conversation?
Not necessarily. A call can be answered and produce nothing — see when a call is answered in silence. The carrier reports connection; whether anybody spoke is a different record.