Canadian SIP trunking and DID numbers — operated, not just sold
Canadian numbers from the carrier. The SIP trunk built and run by us. Both layers under a single contract, on the Canadian direction.
Who connects the number and stays on the routes
If you run a call center, a sales floor, or a support desk that needs to sound local in Toronto or Vancouver, the question is rarely "where do I buy a number." It is who connects that number to your phone system and stays on the routes once they go live. Calls present real, legitimately allocated Canadian numbers in line with the STIR/SHAKEN framework.
VoipTower does both sides: the wholesale infrastructure — Canadian DID numbers and carrier routes through Tier-1 partner relationships — and the managed service layer on top, where the SIP trunk gets configured and watched by an actual engineering team. The numbers matter. But on the Canadian direction the trunk is the thing that has to work.
SIP trunking on the Canadian direction
A Canadian SIP trunk is the connection between your phone system and the public network. Your PBX or call center platform — 3CX, Asterisk, FreePBX, FreeSWITCH, or an auto-dialer — talks to VoipTower's network over IP, and that link carries your inbound and outbound Canadian traffic. No physical lines. No per-channel hardware. Channel limits per direction are confirmed at order.
Outbound on the Canadian direction runs on Canadian DIDs issued to your company. We set the trunk up, connect it to your PBX, run test calls, and stay on the routes after launch. Canadian DID numbers are delivered through that same trunk — part of the package, not a separate product.
Worth noting: the connection method is your choice. IP-to-IP authentication where your platform supports it, or SIP credentials where that fits better. The codecs are G.711 a-law, G.711 μ-law, and G.729 — the set that carries clean Canadian voice without surprises.
CRTC and STIR/SHAKEN: what Canada actually requires
Canada is a STIR/SHAKEN country, and it works differently from the European regimes — so it is worth being precise rather than borrowing framing that does not fit.
Voice service in Canada is overseen by the CRTC, the federal regulator for broadcasting and telecom. Its STIR/SHAKEN rule lives in Compliance and Enforcement and Telecom Decision CRTC 2021-123: from 30 November 2021, providers must authenticate and verify caller ID on IP-based voice calls to be allowed to offer voice service at all. Unlike the United States, Canada wrote in no exemption for smaller carriers. The rule reaches the part of a network that originates, transits, or terminates SIP traffic; legacy TDM calls fall outside it. A provider authenticates the caller ID, signs an attestation, and the receiving provider checks that signature — using tokens issued by the Canadian Secure Token Governance Authority.
This is the part that matters for how you read it: Canada's STIR/SHAKEN is a binding obligation placed on voice providers. It is not a filter that quietly screens out spoofers while everyone else carries on — it is something a compliant provider does on every IP call. So the honest framing here is not "a tailwind we happen to benefit from." It is operational: calls present real, legitimately allocated Canadian numbers in line with the STIR/SHAKEN framework — not spoofed CLI. When the number is genuinely yours, that is exactly the case the framework is built to confirm.
One accuracy note, because it trips people up: Canada mandates the trust-and-signing model, not what the person being called sees on the handset. Unlike the US, there is no Canadian requirement to display a verification indicator to the end user — the authentication happens between providers. The regime was reaffirmed and its reporting streamlined in late 2025, but the technical obligation has not loosened since 2021.
NANP numbering: why a Canadian number is genuinely Canadian
Canada uses the North American Numbering Plan — the same +1 system shared with the United States. A number is ten digits: a three-digit area code plus a seven-digit subscriber number, written NPA-NXX-XXXX. That shared plan is exactly why a Canadian number needs a careful read, and it is the part that makes this page about Canada and nowhere else.
The area codes are local, and each one belongs to a province. Toronto's 416, 647, and 437 are Ontario codes — 942 joined them in 2025 when the city ran short of numbering inventory — and Ottawa's 613, 343, and 753 sit in Ontario as well. Montréal answers on 514 and 438, both Quebec codes. British Columbia holds the Vancouver and Lower Mainland cluster: 604, 778, 236, and 672. Calgary's 403, 587, and 825 are Alberta. Canadian area codes stay inside their province, with three exceptions (902 and 782 in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, 867 across the three territories), and numbers generally cannot move between provinces — an Ontario code reads as an Ontario presence and stays that way. A 514 line says Montréal to whoever picks up, not somewhere vaguely North American. That locality — provincial and city-level at once — is what an international company is buying with a Canadian number.
There is one structural fact in the numbering plan that drives the pricing further down: NANP does not separate landline and mobile into different number ranges the way European plans do. Both live in the same space. That is the reason Canadian outbound is a single rate rather than a split landline/mobile tariff — it is not a pricing choice, it follows from how the numbers are built.
Anti-fraud and number reputation
Caller ID is routed only for numbers issued through VoipTower or ported in with confirmed ownership — arbitrary CLI is not accepted. That sits naturally inside the STIR/SHAKEN model above: the numbers presenting your identity are numbers you actually hold.
The compliance review happens before provisioning, and the KYC token means you onboard once and reuse that verified profile for every later order — plus any country-specific documents per the direction's document scope. Numbers pick up spam labeling over time — normal in any high-volume calling operation, not a sign something is broken. We monitor number reputation and recommend a replacement when a number starts to be flagged; you choose the timing. A flagged number on one account does not bleed into anyone else's.
Onboarding and timelines
Three timelines, kept separate because conflating them sets a false expectation.
Your request is reviewed within about 24 hours. The first number in a country takes 2 to 15 business days, depending on the country — the current ETA for Canada is on the pricing page. Re-orders in a country you already use: from about an hour, up to 1 business day — a five-minute form, then the number delivered from pre-allocated stock. Standard company KYC — company registration, director ID and use case — is done once for your company. Directions with a Local document scope also need proof of a local address. The document list for each direction is on the pricing page. No Canadian incorporation, address, or director is required to hold Canadian numbers.
What it costs on the Canadian direction
Pricing is for the SIP-trunk connection that carries your Canadian numbers and traffic — numbers, trunk, and the engineering, quoted as one thing rather than a line-item DID with surprises attached.
Pricing. Current rates for Canadian numbers — setup, monthly, inbound and outbound per minute — are published on our pricing page — the same rates the order form uses. Engineering, PBX setup and SIP trunk configuration — included; number fees are on the pricing page. See current Canadian rates
Outbound is one rate for both landline and mobile destinations alike, which follows directly from NANP keeping the two in a shared number space rather than separate ranges. The same trunk carries inbound, outbound, and verification traffic. Setup, SIP-trunk configuration, integration, route monitoring, and support are included in those rates — no separate engineering fee, no integration retainer, no per-seat charge.
Two operations already running on the Canadian direction
A metric only means something inside the story it came from, so here are two stories. They belong to two separate international companies running unrelated kinds of traffic on the Canadian direction.
Cold outbound — international e-commerce
An international e-commerce operation calling through a customer base on Canadian numbers. Cold list calling is the unforgiving end of voice — people do not expect the call, and a slow or dirty route shows up immediately. On VoipTower's routes this operation runs an ASR around 72.4%, strong for cold traffic, with post-dial delay just under four seconds. The number an engineer reads first is the PDD, and it sits in the normal range for cold outbound.
Inbound consultations — support traffic
A different company doing the opposite work: inbound consultations, customers calling in for support. Inbound answer rates run higher by nature — the caller intends to connect — and this operation sits around 94.1% ASR, with PDD near two and a half seconds and average call duration close to a minute and three-quarters. The shape of a real conversation, not a routing artifact. We present that 94% as what it is — a working inbound metric over a month, not a grade we are claiming credit for.
Neither company is a "Canadian client" — both are international operations running on Canadian numbers and Canadian routes. What links the two is that the routes behind them are actively run, not left to drift.
Integration and the people behind it
The trunk connects to what you already run — 3CX, Asterisk, FreePBX, FreeSWITCH, or an auto-dialer — over IP-to-IP or SIP credentials. We help connect calls to your CRM through your PBX or dialer — free, in the same chat. CRM-side development stays with your team or your CRM vendor. We have no referral or partner arrangements with PBX, CRM or dialer vendors — recommendations follow technical fit.
The support model is what separates a managed trunk from a number you bought. When you come on, we open a dedicated chat in whatever messenger your team already uses — Telegram, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp — and your engineer, account manager, and billing are all in that one room. Questions get resolved where the people already are, with no ticket queue and no transfers between departments. A team restructure, a new set of extensions, a routing change, a number that needs replacing — same conversation, not a new ticket.
Reliability on the Canadian direction, plainly. Your numbers run on a carrier chosen for that direction, and with clean traffic routes rarely misbehave. Monitoring runs around the clock, and anything that needs attention is handled in the same chat as your engineer and account manager.
Why this shape of provider fits the Canadian direction
Canada has plenty of capable voice providers. For a company that wants to assemble and run its own voice stack, any of them is a reasonable place to buy the pieces.
VoIP.ms out of Montréal has a deep DID inventory and a self-managed, portal-first model. IXICA is a facilities-based Canadian carrier running SIP trunking and cloud PBX coast to coast. ThinkTel runs a national CLEC voice network with points of presence across the country. VoiceMeUp, also Montréal-based, offers SIP trunking and wholesale voice with bilingual support.
VoipTower is built for the company that does not want to assemble the pieces. The difference is not the numbers — those come from carriers either way, at wholesale-grade rates. The difference is the layer on top: the SIP trunk arrives configured, the routing is set up by engineers, the STIR/SHAKEN-aligned CLI and the compliance review are handled, number reputation is monitored, and the team that built it is the team you talk to when something needs to change. You get wholesale infrastructure with a service contract attached, under one relationship, instead of a number catalog plus an in-house voice engineer you would otherwise have to hire.
There is a Canadian wrinkle to plan for: Canada spans six time zones, from Newfoundland to the Pacific. A single set of Canadian numbers can carry traffic for regions whose business hours never line up, so the routing has to be built around each region's hours — calls sent to the right destination for when that part of the country is open. Each number is routed to your PBX; queues, business hours and IVR live in your PBX, and we help on the PBX side.
A Canadian number, the trunk that carries it, caller ID in line with the STIR/SHAKEN framework, and the team that runs the routes — that is the Canadian direction, operated rather than just sold.
How VoipTower services connect for Canadian business
Four core services wired into one Canadian setup. Each has a dedicated page with technical detail.
DID numbers
Canadian geographic DID numbers delivered through the SIP trunk — configured for inbound support, sales callbacks, and local presence.
DID numbersSIP trunking
SIP trunking connecting Canadian numbers to your PBX, call center platform, or dialer over IP-to-IP or SIP credentials; channel limits confirmed at order.
SIP trunkingCall routing
Each number is routed to your PBX. Business-hours rules across Canadian time zones live in your PBX, and we help on the PBX side.
Call routingPBX setup & CRM connection
3CX, Asterisk, FreePBX, FreeSWITCH and auto-dialers. CRM: calls connected through your PBX or dialer — we help.
PBX setup & CRM connectionOther priority countries
Many businesses run Canadian numbers as part of a wider international voice setup. VoipTower covers 25+ countries — with dedicated priority coverage in seven other markets.
Germany
German geographic DID; other types on request. SIP trunking, German-language support routing.
Germany coverageUnited Kingdom
UK numbers (type on the pricing page), business telephony, call center routing.
UK coverageFrance
French DID numbers, SIP trunking, support routing for France.
France coveragePoland
Polish DID numbers, SIP trunking, call center and support routing.
Poland coverageCzech Republic
Czech DID numbers, business VoIP infrastructure, PBX setup and CRM connection.
Czech Republic coverageSouth Africa
South African DID numbers, SIP trunking, support routing for South Africa.
South Africa coverageArgentina
Argentine DID numbers, sales and support workflows.
Argentina coverageFrequently asked questions about the Canadian direction
Ten questions from companies setting up Canadian SIP trunking and numbers.
What does a Canadian SIP trunk actually connect?
A Canadian SIP trunk is the connection between your phone system and the public network. Your PBX or call center platform — 3CX, Asterisk, FreePBX, FreeSWITCH, or an auto-dialer — talks to VoipTower's network over IP, and that link carries your inbound and outbound Canadian traffic. No physical lines and no per-channel hardware. Canadian DID numbers are delivered through that same trunk as part of the package.
How is the trunk sized?
Channel limits per direction are confirmed at order. Outbound on the Canadian direction runs on Canadian DIDs issued to your company. We set the trunk up, connect it to your PBX, run test calls, and stay on the routes after launch.
What does Canada's STIR/SHAKEN rule require?
Voice service in Canada is overseen by the CRTC. Its STIR/SHAKEN rule, in Telecom Decision CRTC 2021-123, requires providers to authenticate and verify caller ID on IP-based voice calls from 30 November 2021. Unlike the United States, Canada wrote in no exemption for smaller carriers. A provider signs an attestation on the caller ID and the receiving provider checks that signature, using tokens issued by the Canadian Secure Token Governance Authority.
Will calls on my Canadian numbers show a verified caller ID?
Calls present real, legitimately allocated Canadian numbers in line with the STIR/SHAKEN framework — not spoofed CLI. One accuracy note: Canada mandates the trust-and-signing model between providers, not what the person being called sees on the handset. Unlike the US, there is no Canadian requirement to display a verification indicator to the end user.
Why is a Canadian number genuinely Canadian if it shares +1 with the US?
Canada uses the North American Numbering Plan, the same +1 system shared with the United States: a ten-digit number written NPA-NXX-XXXX. The area codes are local — Toronto runs on 416, 647, 437, and 942; Montréal is 514 and 438; Vancouver stacks 604, 778, 236, and 672. With three exceptions — 902 and 782, shared by Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, and 867, which covers the three territories — Canadian area codes do not cross provincial lines, and numbers generally cannot be ported between provinces. So a 514 number is a Montréal presence, not a generic North American line.
Why is Canadian outbound a single rate for landline and mobile?
Canadian outbound is billed at one flat rate for landline and mobile. The current per-minute figures are on the pricing page.
Can you route any caller ID I want?
No. Caller ID is routed only for numbers issued through VoipTower or ported in with confirmed ownership — arbitrary CLI is not accepted. The compliance review happens before provisioning, and a KYC token means you onboard once and reuse that verified profile for every later order — plus any country-specific documents per the direction's document scope. We also monitor number reputation and recommend a replacement when a number starts to be flagged; you choose the timing.
What does it cost on the Canadian direction?
A Canadian geographic DID is billed as a one-time setup, a monthly fee per number and per-minute inbound and outbound traffic. No engineering or integration fees, no per-hour billing. Current rates — setup, monthly, inbound and outbound per minute — are published on our pricing page — the same rates the order form uses.
How long does onboarding take?
Three separate timelines. Your request is reviewed within about 24 hours. The first number in a country takes 2 to 15 business days, depending on the country — the current ETA is on the pricing page. Re-orders in a country you already use: from about an hour, up to 1 business day, from your allocated stock, with no repeat company KYC.
What does the managed layer add over buying numbers myself?
The numbers come from carriers either way. The difference is the layer on top: the SIP trunk arrives configured, the routing is set up by engineers, the STIR/SHAKEN-aligned CLI and compliance review are handled, number reputation is monitored, and the team that built it is the team you talk to when something needs to change. You get wholesale infrastructure with a service contract attached, under one relationship, instead of a number catalog plus an in-house voice engineer.
Set up the Canadian direction — numbers, trunk, and the team that runs the routes.
A Canadian number, the trunk that carries it, caller ID in line with the STIR/SHAKEN framework, and the engineering team that stays on the routes. Tell us what Canadian numbers you need, how calls should be routed, and what systems you already run.