Architecture before endpoints
Telecom API Integration: Choose the Architecture First
A telecom API integration is two different projects wearing one name: a reporting feed that reads call data, and an operational control layer that changes routing. Deciding which you are building — before touching endpoints — is what keeps the project small.
- Feed, control, or both
- Start read-only, always
- Three API areas, one map
Integration questions
What can an integration with your API actually do?
Two classes of work: read — pull call detail records and service listings from the Services and CDR areas; and write — change call forwarding and recording through the Routing Management area. Both are RESTful JSON with bearer-token authentication.
Where should a first integration start?
Read-only, always: a scheduled pull of CDR records into your reporting stack. It cannot misroute a call, it teaches you the API's rhythms — freshness, rate limits, pagination — and it delivers value from the first week.
When is write-side integration worth it?
When routing has to follow systems that change often: rosters, monitoring, campaign calendars. If your destinations change a few times a year, the console is cheaper than code — the honest test is change frequency.
Integrations fail in the planning, usually by trying to be both a reporting feed and an operational control plane at once. The Simple Telecom API supports both projects — but they have different risks, different tests and different first weeks. This page maps the architecture decision before any endpoint gets touched.
The two architectures
The reporting feed. A scheduled process pulls call detail records — the CDR area, with records appearing within roughly one to two minutes of each call completing — and lands them in your reporting stack. Read-only, low-risk, immediately useful: calls per number, durations, answered rates, joined against your own data.
The control layer. Your systems make routing changes: rosters re-point after-hours destinations, monitoring triggers failover, campaign calendars launch and tear down number redirects. This is the Routing Management area — write-side, and built with the care write access deserves.
Both ride on the same foundation: RESTful JSON over HTTPS with bearer-token authentication, rate limited for production, described on the API page.
The sequence that works
- Feed first. Build the CDR pull. It delivers value — the calls-per-number picture — with no ability to break anything. The walkthrough is in getting started with the API.
- Join your data. Correlate call records with orders, tickets or campaigns in your analytics. This is where telecom data becomes business data — the patterns are in call analytics through the API.
- Automate the reads — alerting on anomalies, weekly summaries — before touching writes.
- Control last, narrowly. One routing change, one trigger, with confirmation steps. The routing patterns are in API call routing.
The honest prerequisites
The API automates services that must exist first: numbers hosted with us, from $10 a month for standard 1300 and 1800 services, searchable on available numbers. Credentials come with your account, per the API page. And the boundary holds: this API manages your inbound services — it does not provision global virtual numbers or place outbound calls, and integration plans that assume otherwise need a different product.
The takeaway
Feed, control, or both in that order — read-only first, writes narrow and confirmed. The rates behind every record are on the pricing page.
Build on live services
Get numbers worth integrating
1300 and 1800 numbers from $10 a month, tracking from $5 — searchable free in the live pool.