Adding Value: SIP Trunks

Over the last three years the SIP market has matured significantly both in the technology supporting the protocol and in peoples understanding as to what SIP can do for their business. SIP now offers a genuine alternative to ISDN however the determining factor on whether it is a viable option is the connectivity used; Ethernet, EFM or DSL?
Headline costs on SIP make a marketing team’s job very easier, most companies are choosing to offer these free of charge as they know the real money is in the technology supporting the trunks. Ethernet services has to be one of the fastest growing areas of the telecoms reseller market place, higher margins, long term contracts and fantastic quality of service has made it a favourite amongst companies of any size, large or small. This coupled with the continuing price fall of data connectivity and the introduction of EFM keeps the underlining costs low.

SIP as a technology is ready to be used for business critical services but only when the underlining infrastructure is able to offer the necessary SLA’s and SLGs. SIP trunks over DSL will never be a like for like alternative to ISDN as it does not have the same business grade SLG that is offered by traditional ISDN services. If SIP is carried over Ethernet, however, it does become a viable alternative to ISDN. This technology is supported by SLGs guaranteeing 99.98% uptime, or similar, with options of diverse routing and failover type solutions. “When making a decision as to whether to utilise SIP trunks or ISDN in your company it really should be the SLAs and SLGs that determine the business decision on mission critical services” says Paul Cloudsdale, Technical Director of O-bit Telecom.

In comparison to DSL, Ethernet services are more expensive however spare capacity can be used for Internet access or WAN connectivity. This allocation of spare resource is not available in the ISDN world – any spare capacity goes unused.

Business continuity features of SIP trunks include the ability to re-route calls over a back up connection if there is fault on the primary route. This failover is immediate and ensures no downtime at site. Failover between technologies is seamless and minimises the possibility of total failure of service in the business critical environment. To ensure business continuity two services or technologies are required. There is also the clear benefit of being hugely flexible, accommodating home workers thus removing geographic boundaries and the incredible amount of extra features available such as call recording and follow me applications.

“The future and development of the voice infrastructure resides in the SIP trunking arena, we are more likely to see a drop off of ISDN with SIP trunking becoming the de facto service for voice services but it really does come down to three things: connectivity, connectivity, connectivity.” Cloudsdale.