White, black and grey routes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A white route is, in the telecommunications business, a legal termination route. This is opposed to a black route, which is a route that uses illegal termination. Also common in telecom (especially VoIP) is the term grey route, which defines a route that is legal for one country or the party on one end, but illegal for the party on the other.
An example of the white/grey/black trichotomy is often seen in telecom routes from the USA to India. In India, a telecom monopoly is granted to a few large corporations. Hence, all legal ("white") telecom traffic to the country is subject to the rates imposed by these corporations. To overcome this restriction for the purpose of achieving lower costs for consumers, and to make a profit in the process, many small parties set up VoIP routers in homes and offices around India. Telecom traffic from the USA is sent to these VoIP routers via TCP/IP and terminated to the local Indian PSTN. This process is illegal in India ("black"), but completely lawful in the USA ("white"). A route like this that is white on one end and black on the other is said to be "grey".
