Wholesale voice termination is the carrier-to-carrier service that completes outbound calls from an originating network onto the destination's public switched telephone network, the invisible last mile behind every VoIP platform and contact center, letting a business buy termination capacity instead of building its own global interconnects. The call path runs through four stages — origination as SIP traffic, route lookup against routing tables, path selection by cost and quality tier, and termination by the destination carrier — with providers holding direct interconnects outperforming those reselling third-party capacity even at identical quoted rates. Most termination is sold as A-Z, covering any country under one contract, but underneath sit three route types: CLI routes that pass the real caller ID and carry the highest ASR and cost, non-CLI routes that are cheaper but face rising carrier blocking, and CC routes at the lowest price and reliability. Pricing is driven mainly by destination (US and Western European fixed-line often starting near $0.003 to $0.005 per minute, with mobile and thin-competition markets far higher) and route type, with CLI typically carrying a 20 to 40 percent premium, while billing model — true per-second versus six-second increments or false answer supervision — can matter more than the headline rate. Three quality metrics dominate evaluation: ASR (60 to 80 percent is typical on premium CLI routes to major destinations, below 40 to 50 percent is a red flag), ACD, and PDD (over 5 to 6 seconds is a problem). Evaluation criteria include direct network ownership, live per-destination data, CLI delivery policy, STIR/SHAKEN attestation under FCC rules, transparent billing, a credit-backed uptime SLA, and 24/7 support, alongside red flags like suspiciously low rates, no published SLA, hidden FAS billing, and reluctance to share live data or allow a trial.