Introducing media and data residency on Open Voice Shield

A call on Open Voice Shield produces two kinds of data. The media: a two-channel recording of the audio and, for a while, the packet capture it was decoded from. And the record: the call's signalling facts, its transcript, the analysis verdict, the charge on the ledger and the audit trail. Data location is the account-level choice of which region the media is written to, and which region's relay carries it while the call is live. It is not a choice about the record, which stays in the platform database in Canada.

This is the ordinary meaning of data residency applied to voice: the geographic region where a copy of the data is held at rest, and the region the live media passes through. Both matter, for different reasons, so the platform lets you set them separately.

Privacy law and contracts

Canadian operators answer to PIPEDA and, for some, to provincial law; operators serving European callers answer to the GDPR; many carrier contracts and procurement checklists name a country the recordings may not leave. Choosing the region in the portal, and seeing it on every call record, turns that clause into something you can show rather than promise.

Media latency

Audio that is anchored on a relay in the region where the traffic lives takes a shorter path. For calls between a switch in the United States and destinations in the United States, a relay in the same region removes a round trip to Canada on every packet, which shows up as lower jitter and a steadier estimated MOS.

Other regions

Europe, or any other region our cloud runs in, can be enabled on request for both the media relay and storage: write to support@telecomsxchange.com. Once enabled, the region appears on the card like the others.

Keeping the two apart

Some operators want the audio relayed close to the traffic but the recordings held at home, or the reverse. Because the two choices are independent, either combination is one card and one save.

Your switch sends every call to the same ingress in Canada. From there, the media relay choice decides whether the audio is anchored on the relay in Canada or the relay in the United States. That relay records the call. The recordings storage choice decides whether the recording and the capture are then written to the store in Canada or the store in the United States. Any relay can write to any store, which is what makes the two choices independent.

A recording that belongs in the other region is uploaded there as soon as it is decoded and the copy on the node that decoded it is removed at once, so the only copy at rest is in the region you chose. Each call record carries the regions it was made with, so a change to the account never moves an existing call's media, and an auditor can read the region off any call rather than off a policy page.

1. Open Data location. Sign in, open Account from the left navigation and find the Data location card. Both choices read Canada until you change them.
2. Pick a region for recordings storage. Under Where your recordings are stored, choose Canada or the United States. A region the platform cannot serve yet is listed but cannot be picked.
3. Pick a region for the media relay. Under Which media relay carries your calls, choose Canada or the United States. Your SIP ingress address does not change. Only the relay that anchors the audio does.
4. Save and check the record. The storage choice applies to calls from now on, and recordings already stored stay where they are. The relay choice applies to new calls. The change lands in your audit log with the acting user.

Recordings storage

Applies to every call from the moment you save. The recording and the capture of each later call are written to the region you chose. Recordings already stored stay where they are; their call records still say which region holds them.

Media relay

Applies to new calls. A call already in progress finishes on the relay it started on. The next call is anchored on the relay of the region you chose, and its record names that region.

Everything else

Unchanged. The ingress address your switch sends to, your destinations, routing rules, alerts, the web dialer and the API keys all stay as they are.

The platform database, and everything in it: call records and their signalling facts, transcripts, analyses and verdicts, the ledger, invoices and the audit log. The SIP ingress and the signalling path. The portal and the API. Data location covers only the media of your calls, the part with weight, and leaves the account where it is. The privacy policy and the security overview describe the whole picture.

Yes. The choice is two fields on one endpoint, and the account endpoint carries them too.

GET /customer/data-location
{
  "data_region": "ca",
  "media_region": "ca",
  "default_region": "ca",
  "regions": [
    {"code": "ca", "label": "Canada", "detail": "Central Canada (Montréal)",
     "storage_available": true, "media_available": true},
    {"code": "us", "label": "United States", "detail": "US East (N. Virginia)",
     "storage_available": true, "media_available": true}
  ]
}

PUT /customer/data-location
{"data_region": "us", "media_region": "us"}

A region the platform cannot serve yet is refused with a 422 that names it, so a script never silently lands in the wrong place. The full reference is in the Data location guide.

Data residency

The geographic region where data is held at rest. Here, the region the recording and the capture of a call are written to.

Media relay

The component that carries the audio of a call between your switch and the destination and records it. Each region has one, and the choice decides which anchors your calls.

Ingress

The SIP address your switch sends calls to. There is one, in Canada, and it does not change with the choice.

Media capture

The raw packet capture of a call's audio, kept for a short time next to the recording for diagnostics and export, and covered by the same storage choice.

Call record

The call's facts in the platform database: numbers, timing, verdict, transcript, charge. Always in Canada.

Recordings and the media relay default to Canada. Either can move to the United States when you choose, or to Europe or another region on request. The two are set separately, every call record names the regions it used, and the account itself stays where it is. To change them, open Account, then Data location, and save.

Related: the Data location guide, the privacy policy, the security overview, or start free with $5 credit.