Trying to fully understand the workings and benefits of any technologically-based service can be tricky if you have no real involvement in the industry, as professionals consider so much knowledge a given. That’s why here, we try to break things down a little more, so that you can understand exactly what WHYPAY? is offering, whether it’s suitable for you, and why it’s so great. Kindly sharing their rather considerable knowledge with us are Managing Director Martyn King, and Technical Director Simon Sharman.

1. Who is your target audience? Who do you think WHYPAY? is a suitable service for, and why? Is it just for small businesses?

   SS: WHYPAY? is suitable for any conferencing requirement, that wants to permit multiple user communication, not just business use. We have had prayer groups, auctions and gamer groups all use the service. I think the main standout point is the price bracket. That’s not to say it isn’t suitable for business – it is used regularly for team catch-up events and sales conferences.

   MK: WHYPAY? appeals to any business, public body or not for profit organisation that can benefit from the costs savings available by using the service. It is not just a service targeted at small businesses either; the inclusive features such as call recording, participant announcements and conference call scheduling available can be utilised by large businesses. For example: a large mobile sales force can schedule WHYPAY? conference calls for daily/weekly sales update meetings; a recruitment company can save costs by having secure WHYPAY? conference rooms for telephone interviews for candidates. The options are as varied as your imagination.

2. What would you say are the best aspects of WHYPAY?’s functionality? Would you say it has features which make it stand out from competitors?

   SS: Cost. WHYPAY? uses 03 numbers which, from the UK at least, are generally included in bundled rates from call providers, so calls come at no extra cost to callers. Another great benefit is that the signup process is fast and light-weight due to the lack of payment information, which means people can set up and be on a call in record time.

   MK: The ability to call in from a UK mobile or landline knowing that there will be no nasty surprises on the callers’ phone bills. Use of their inclusive minutes (when available) means calls are often effectively free. The ability to set up an account easily on-line and invite attendees for a one off or repeat call. The fact that any free WHYPAY? conference room is open at any time; meaning that should a conference call overrun, there is no call cut off at a predetermined time. Most importantly, there are no recurring monthly account fees – callers simply call a UK Wide 03 number which is included in calling bundles, so no high rate call charges like other providers that use higher rate 08 numbers for access.

3. One quality which is understandably a high priority for users is the service’s reliability. Do you think WHYPAY? really provides a reliable service? How do you ensure you can guarantee this?

   SS: The WHYPAY? service operates over a highly resilient carrier network operated by Nexbridge Communications. Using multiple ingress and egress routes to our service we are able to operate even when our upstream peers have localised issues.

   MK: Significant capacity is available at all times across diverse interconnects and capacity planning is employed to ensure increases in traffic are forecasted and capacity in place to handle any increase in call traffic. All hardware that supports the website and the WHYPAY? call servers is hosted in industry standard secure data centres, again ensuring stability and quality of the voice traffic.

4. Is WHYPAY? a large conference call provider, or do you cater to a smaller, less demanding group of clients? Does WHYPAY?’s scale impact upon the reliability a user can expect?

   MK: WHYPAY? operates across a network than handles many millions of calls per day, so whilst we are a small team, the network and architecture is scalable to handle volumes similar to many of the larger players in the industry. WHYPAY? provides services to some large names in the public and private sector, with ability to handle around 50 attendees per conference call as standard.

5. Security, is of course another extremely important factor in choosing a conference call provider, especially for people who will be regularly discussing sensitive or confidential information. Why do you feel able to confidently assure people that WHYPAY? is a secure provider?

   SS: The WHYPAY? website is protected by an industry standard 128 bit TLS certificate enabling the end user to be confident that any web based communication and call recording will be secure from prying eyes. From a telecoms perspective this service also runs inside Nexbridge Communications secure data facility with direct communication with our upstream peers.

   MK: WHYPAY? operates in a secure web environment, with logins for user accounts, and call recordings hosted on platforms that are within secure hosting facilities as mentioned previously. You are allocated 8-digit random room numbers and 4-digit PINs, giving a trillion permutations. The possibility of un-invited participants joining your call are therefore infinitesimally small. Call recordings are only available for seven days, and only accessible by the conference organiser who can decide to whom the recordings are to be circulated. After seven days, call recordings are deleted from our servers.

6. Do you provide just one standard set of features designed to suit everybody, or can users pick and choose the features they consider most suitable and important?

   MK: WHYPAY? being a free service offers a standard set of features that have been carefully considered and added to or enhanced, as we receive feedback from our customers.

   SS: Still, many of these features can be tailored not just by user, but by the specific room the customer is using. Users have the option to turn on call recording, participant announcement and scheduling on a per conference basis by setting up a WHYPAY? account and using our online configuration options.

7. If the service is of such a strong calibre, how is it that you can afford to provide it for free? What’s the catch?

   MK: We believe passionately in providing a valuable service that almost all businesses have a need for – call conferencing. We looked at the UK Wide 03 number range and found that it would provide a small fraction of a penny out-payment per minute whilst also allowing callers to enjoy effectively free calls from inclusive call minute bundles. We’re not greedy, and feel that whilst we do often get asked “what’s the catch?”, the service is genuinely sustainable based upon the volumes of calls WHYPAY? handles and the fraction of a penny per minute that we receive from interconnect revenue for terminating the 03 calls.