Telephony Providers

Pick the right phone carrier for your market — or combine several. Lodgestory Voice works with every supported provider so your numbers, agents, and routing rules stay the same regardless of who's handling the calls.

TL;DR

• What it is — the provider-agnostic layer inside Lodgestory Voice that connects to four supported telephony carriers. Pick one for a single region, or run multiple in the same CRM for geographic coverage.
• Who it's for — admins choosing a provider during setup, and operators adding a second carrier for additional regions or redundancy.
• Top outcome — a single CRM that handles calls from any supported carrier, so your team sees every call in one inbox and every recording on one timeline — regardless of who carried the call.

At a glance

How to find it

Sidebar: Settings → Calling — the workspace where every provider account is configured.

Direct URL: https://lodgestory.com/crm/settings/calling

📸 [SCREENSHOT: providers-landing.png — calling accounts list with provider badges and health indicators]

What is a Telephony Provider?

The problem it solves

Choosing a telephony provider is one of the hardest setup decisions in hospitality. The right answer depends on your geography, your volume, your compliance needs, and your existing business relationships. A hotel group in India wants a carrier with competitive domestic rates and local compliance. A US boutique chain wants US toll-free numbers, local numbers, and programmable voice features. An agency managing both regions wants to run multiple providers side by side and bill each client independently.

No single provider is best for every situation. Lodgestory Voice takes the view that the right approach is to support the major providers properly and let you pick — or combine — the ones that fit your market. Underneath, all the user-facing features (voice menus, departments, agents, recording, outbound campaigns) work identically regardless of the carrier. So you can change providers without changing how your team uses the CRM.

What you get

• Four supported providers, each covering a market well.
• Unified CRM experience. Every call, inbound or outbound, through any provider, lands in the same Calls workspace with the same contact record, the same timeline, and the same recording panel.
• Per-account isolation. Each provider account is its own configuration — credentials, numbers, and webhook secrets stay scoped to one organisation.
• Easy provider switching. Swap providers without rewriting your departments, voice menus, or agent directory.
• Multi-provider setups. Run Tata Tele for India DIDs and SignalWire for US DIDs inside the same CRM.
• Consistent outbound campaigns. The outbound dialer works with every provider; you pick the number pool, the pacing respects the provider's rate limits, and recordings land in the same place.

Which provider should I pick?

Here's the quick guide. See each provider's detail section further down for more.

Customer scenarios

• India villa group on Tata Tele plus a second brand on Airtel. Two provider accounts inside one organisation. Domestic numbers flow through whichever provider suits each brand's needs. One CRM, one agent pool, two carriers.
• US startup on SignalWire only. One provider account handles everything. Agents' browser softphones, voice menus, departments, and outbound campaigns all use SignalWire under the hood.
• India + US brand using Lodgestory Voice first-party. One provider account covering both regions, with Lodgestory handling the underlying infrastructure in each data center.
• Agency with multiple clients. Each client gets their own provider account on the carrier that suits their market, all inside one agency-wide CRM with proper separation.

How it fits with Lodgestory Voice

• Phone Numbers belong to a provider account — a number is provisioned with the carrier and assigned a routing rule in Lodgestory.
• Agents can span providers — a single team member can answer calls that come in on any carrier, from their one browser softphone.
• Departments, voice menus, outbound campaigns all work the same regardless of which provider carried the call.
• Recordings and voicemail are unified — playback inside Lodgestory doesn't expose which provider captured the audio.

Core concepts

Quick Start — connect your first provider in five minutes

Step 1 — Create an account with your chosen provider

Sign up with the carrier separately. You'll get API keys, SIP credentials, or a combination depending on the provider.

Step 2 — Navigate and add the account

Settings → Calling → + Add Account. Pick your provider from the list. The form asks for the details that provider needs.

📸 [SCREENSHOT: provider-qs-2-picker.png — provider picker with four options]

Step 3 — Fill in the details

Enter the account name, the API or trunk credentials, and the webhook secret if applicable.

📸 [SCREENSHOT: provider-qs-3-form.png — Tata Tele configuration form with credentials fields]

Step 4 — Save

Lodgestory tests the connection immediately. You'll see a health indicator turn green if everything is reachable. If something's off, the error reason appears next to the account card.

Step 5 — Provision agents

Add agents to this account — see Agents. For providers that need carrier-side identifiers, the form prompts for them.

Step 6 — Add phone numbers

Add the numbers you provisioned with the carrier — see Phone Numbers.

Step 7 — Place a test call

Use click-to-call from the CRM to dial your own mobile. Confirm the ring, answer, conversation, and recording all work end-to-end.

What's next

• Set up voice menus on your new numbers — see Voice Menus.
• Configure departments and ring strategies — see Departments.
• Launch an outbound campaign once you're comfortable with the basics.

Provider profiles

Tata Tele Smartflo

Best for: India-based businesses wanting fast setup with a mature platform.

Tata Tele Smartflo is a market-leading Indian cloud PBX. Its strength is convenience — sign up online, get a phone number, and you're making calls within a day. Recordings live in Tata's infrastructure and are fetched on demand when you click play inside the CRM.

• Ideal use cases: SMEs, villa groups, small hotel chains, anyone launching voice quickly in India.
• Coverage: Nationwide India, mobile and landline.
• Rate structure: Per-minute (domestic), per-number monthly fee. Contact Tata for current pricing.
• Strengths: Fast provisioning, mature admin tools, good local support, provider-hosted recordings with no storage headache for you.
• Things to know: Recordings live with Tata — cancelling your Tata account takes the recordings with it. For long-term retention, export recordings periodically or ask Lodgestory about archive options.
• Call semantics: Click-to-call is agent-first by design — Tata rings the agent's phone first, then dials the customer.

Lodgestory Voice (first-party)

Best for: businesses that want Lodgestory to handle the whole stack end-to-end.

Lodgestory Voice is our first-party telephony platform with data centers in India and the US. It's a turn-key option for customers who'd rather not manage a separate provider contract.

• Ideal use cases: Brands that prefer a single vendor, customers who want regional data residency built in, anyone who wants Lodgestory's integrated experience without negotiating a separate carrier relationship.
• Coverage: India and US, expanding to additional regions.
• Rate structure: Bundled with Lodgestory Voice plans. Higher-volume tiers include greater monthly minute allowances.
• Strengths: Single vendor, single bill, consistent support experience, secure cloud recording storage included in the plan, multi-region with automatic failover.
• Things to know: If you already have a provider contract you want to keep (e.g., an existing Tata Tele account with your own numbers), use that instead — bring-your-own-carrier is fully supported.

SignalWire

Best for: US-based businesses wanting a modern, programmable carrier.

SignalWire is a US-focused cloud communications platform with a developer-friendly API and wide number-type coverage. Lodgestory connects to it for US trunking.

• Ideal use cases: US startups, modern tech-forward hospitality brands, anyone wanting US toll-free or local numbers with flexible features.
• Coverage: US nationwide, plus international reach in many regions.
• Rate structure: Per-minute plus per-number monthly. Usage-based with no setup fees.
• Strengths: Modern platform, strong US presence, flexible number types (local, toll-free, international), WebRTC-friendly.
• Things to know: For calls crossing from the US to India, we recommend routing India-bound calls through an India carrier (Tata Tele or Airtel MSIP) for better delivery — a common multi-provider pattern. Lodgestory can configure this for you during setup.

Airtel MSIP

Best for: regulated Indian businesses that need DoT-compliant telephony.

Airtel MSIP is a managed SIP trunk from Airtel designed for enterprises that need compliance with India's Department of Telecommunications regulations. Lodgestory handles all the compliance requirements on your behalf.

• Ideal use cases: Large Indian hotel chains, government-adjacent properties, any business where DoT compliance is non-negotiable.
• Coverage: Nationwide India.
• Rate structure: Negotiated enterprise contract with Airtel directly.
• Strengths: DoT-compliant by default, reliable Airtel infrastructure, carrier-grade call quality.
• Things to know: Airtel MSIP is an enterprise relationship — provisioning takes longer than Tata Tele (measured in weeks, not hours) and requires contract negotiation with Airtel. Once connected, Lodgestory handles compliance automatically.

Provider comparison

How it works

• You sign up with one or more providers and add each one as a provider account inside Lodgestory.
• Each account carries its own credentials, numbers, and configuration — scoped so nothing leaks across accounts.
• When a call arrives, the right provider receives it and hands it to Lodgestory via a secure notification. Your voice menus, departments, and agents take over from there — they don't know or care which provider carried the call.
• When an agent places an outbound call or an outbound campaign dials a contact, Lodgestory uses the provider associated with the chosen phone number. Caller ID is set correctly for that provider.
• Call recordings and voicemails land in Lodgestory's unified storage so you never have to hunt across providers to find an audio clip.
• A health indicator on each provider account shows live status — if a provider is having an outage, you'll see it immediately.

The whole point is that you interact with agents, departments, and phone numbers — not with providers. The provider is a detail Lodgestory hides.

Features in depth

Adding a provider account

The provider picker opens the right form for each carrier. Common fields are account name and webhook secret; provider-specific fields appear once you pick. For example:

• Tata Tele Smartflo — account name, API base URL, authentication mode (permanent API key or short-lived token), credentials, webhook secret.
• Lodgestory Voice (first-party) — account name only; Lodgestory handles the rest at deployment.
• SignalWire — account name, project ID, API token, optional SIP trunk credentials.
• Airtel MSIP — account name plus the trunk identifiers Airtel provided.

📸 [SCREENSHOT: provider-add-form.png — Tata Tele add-account form with all fields]

Health monitoring

Every provider account shows a live health indicator: healthy, degraded, or error. Errors include the last-known reason — useful for knowing at a glance whether a misconfigured webhook or an expired token is the problem. The detail page shows the timestamps of the last successful authentication check and the last received webhook.

Token refresh

For providers with short-lived tokens, Lodgestory automatically refreshes them before expiry. The health indicator flags any refresh failures so you can re-enter credentials before calls are affected.

Account actions

On every provider account detail page:

• Refresh token — force an immediate token refresh if your provider uses short-lived tokens.
• Re-sync numbers — pull the latest list of numbers from your provider and merge it with the Lodgestory side.
• Test connection — ping the provider and report success or failure with specifics.

Deprovisioning

Removing a provider account cleans up the webhook registration with the provider and marks any associated numbers as inactive. Calls already in flight finish normally. You'll want to reassign numbers to a different provider account (or release them with the carrier) before completing the removal.

Roles & permissions

Connections

• Phone Numbers — every number is associated with a provider account.
• Agents — softphones and Follow-Me work across provider accounts inside the same organisation.
• Voice Menus, Departments, Outbound Campaigns — provider-agnostic. The routing layer is the same regardless of which carrier is underneath.
• Call Recording & Voicemail — recordings from any provider appear in the same place.

Limits a user will run into

Provider-side limits vary by contract. The table below shows typical values; confirm with your provider for your specific plan.

Your plan page shows live usage against these limits for provider accounts where they apply.

Errors & FAQ

Can I run two providers on the same CRM?
Yes. Add both as separate provider accounts. Assign numbers to whichever one makes sense for each number. Agents use the same softphone for calls on either provider.

What happens to in-flight calls when I remove a provider account?
They continue and complete normally. Only new calls on that account are blocked after removal.

How often do short-lived provider tokens refresh?
Lodgestory refreshes them well before expiry. The health indicator will flag any refresh failures.

How do I test a provider's webhooks after setup?
Place a real call and watch the provider account's detail page — the most recent webhook events appear in the log, with their parsed payloads. Most providers also have their own test harness.

Can one call cross two providers?
In some routing scenarios, yes — for example, an India-bound leg routing through an India carrier. The call log will show which provider carried each leg, and the experience in the CRM is unchanged.

Can I migrate between providers without losing numbers?
Number portability depends on the carriers involved. Typically the source carrier needs to release the number and the destination carrier needs to accept it. Plan the transition with your carriers; Lodgestory will keep the routing rules intact.

Which provider do you recommend for my situation?
Check the "Which provider should I pick?" table above. If you're unsure or your case is unusual, email [email protected] — we'll advise based on your geography, volume, and compliance needs.

Troubleshooting

Changelog

• Apr 2026 — First-party Lodgestory Voice now generally available in US and India with multi-region failover.
• Mar 2026 — Airtel MSIP integration with DoT-compliant telephony.
• Feb 2026 — Provider health monitoring and automatic token refresh across supported providers.
• Jan 2026 — SignalWire support expanded for US-based customers.

Related modules

• Phone Numbers — where numbers and routing rules live.
• Agents — provider-agnostic softphone experience.
• Outbound Campaigns — work uniformly across providers.
• Call Recording & Voicemail — unified recording inbox.
• Voice product hub — the overall picture.