What counts as a line
How Conduit TEM counts the lines your plan is sized for, with examples, and how to see the count for your organization.
In the app:Plan & billing
On this page
Plans are sized by lines. A line is one thing a person, a site or a system uses to connect, with its own monthly charge. We count what is in service, not how your carrier lays out the bill, so you pay the same whether a trunk's numbers are listed one by one or printed as "45 DIDs".
See your count
Go to Settings → Plan & billing. Under Usage, the Lines bar shows how many lines you have against your plan's limit. Below it, a short breakdown shows what makes up the count, for example:
52 lines: 40 mobile, 6 landlines, 1 trunk, 3 internet, 2 number blocks (45 numbers)
Select What counts as a line under the breakdown to come back to this guide.
One line each
- Mobile lines: phones, tablets, hotspots, smartwatches and data-only SIMs with their own plan.
- Landlines: business lines, fax lines, alarm and elevator lines.
- Hosted phone seats: a user on a cloud phone system.
- Voice trunks: a SIP trunk or a PRI, whatever its number of channels. The phone numbers on it are counted separately, as below.
- Internet and data circuits: fibre, cable, DSL, MPLS, SD-WAN, dedicated internet, and LTE or 5G backup.
Phone numbers count in blocks
Every 25 phone numbers (DIDs and toll-free numbers) count as one line, rounded up, across your whole organization. So 1 to 25 numbers are 1 line, 26 to 50 are 2, and so on.
When a bill doesn't list the numbers but says how many there are (for example "SIP trunk, 45 DIDs" or "block of 100 numbers"), that count is used. A mobile line's or a landline's own number is part of that line and isn't counted again.
Never counted
- Extensions behind your own phone system: they ride on the trunk that's already counted.
- Devices and hardware: phone financing and rentals belong to the line they sit on.
- Features and add-ons: voicemail, long-distance packs, roaming and travel passes, call recording, static IPs.
- Shared data pools and account-level charges: each SIM on the pool counts, not the pool.
- One-time charges, credits, taxes and fees.
- AI seats and usage, and cloud accounts: they're part of AI spend and cloud spend, not lines.
When a line counts
- A line marked Active in Inventory counts.
- A Suspended line counts while the carrier still bills it, that is while it has a monthly charge on the latest bill of its account. Finding lines like these is part of the point.
- A line that came in from a bill and isn't confirmed yet counts while it's on the latest bill of its account.
- Disconnected lines never count.
- A number ported from one carrier to another in the same month counts once, even if it's on both carriers' bills.
Examples
| On the bills | Lines | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 1 SIP trunk, 23 channels, labelled "45 DIDs" | 3 | 1 for the trunk + 45 numbers in blocks of 25 (2) |
| The same trunk, with all 45 numbers listed one by one | 3 | Same answer: we count what's in service, not the bill layout |
| 1 PRI with 200 numbers and 150 extensions on your own phone system | 9 | 1 for the trunk + 8 number blocks; extensions don't count |
| 40 cell phones on a shared 200 GB pool, 12 phones on financing | 40 | Each SIM counts; the pool and the device payments don't |
| 25 hosted phone users, 30 numbers, 2 fax lines, 1 fibre internet | 30 | 25 seats + 2 number blocks + 2 + 1 |
| 1 toll-free number on its own | 1 | A block starts at the first number |
| A store: 1 cable internet, 1 LTE backup, 1 alarm line, 1 point-of-sale line | 4 | Each connection has its own charge |
| 5 iPads with data plans and 3 hotspots | 8 | Data-only SIMs are mobile lines |
| A suspended mobile line still billed at $15 | 1 | Still billed, so it counts until it's cancelled |
| A static IP block, call recording and a roaming pass | 0 | Add-ons sit on a line that's already counted |
If the count looks wrong
The count follows your inventory and your latest bills. If a line is cancelled but still counts, open it in Inventory and set its status to Disconnected. If the carrier still bills it, that's worth a word with the carrier too.
Going over your plan's limit only shows a warning. Bills that are already in always keep processing. See Plans, limits and billing.