SIP Trunking

The Evolution of VoIP

SIP Trunking is the next evolution in the migration to VoIP. Until now, while your telephone system may be IP based your outside lines were still traditional analog or digital trunks. Not any more, now you can get Unity SIP Trunks so that you can make end-to-end VoIP calls.

SIP Trunks work more efficiently because they leverage your broadband or internet connection and not a series of fixed lines from the Telco.

Instead of oversubscribing the number of fixed lines you need to cover for that one very busy hour every day, you can pay for what you use most of the time and only pay on demand when you need to go over. This is called ‘bursting.’

Benefits of SIP Trunks

More Efficient Use of Bandwidth

Data networks are much more efficient users of bandwidth than dedicated, traditional digital and analog telecommunications connections. If there is no call on the ‘Telco’ line, you are paying for idle bandwidth. Those lines only have one purpose.

With a broadband or internet connection multiple ‘applications’ can leverage the bandwidth. Meaning that you get much more use out of your internet bandwidth than with ‘Telco’ lines.

And just to be safe, we tend oversubscribe our ‘Telco’ lines to account for that busiest hour of the week, so we don’t have ‘busy’ signals. Which means that for 95% of the week we pay for bandwidth that will never be used.

Lower Cost Bandwidth

Data networks are also the lowest cost per ‘byte’ we can buy these days.

To put it in perspective, a ‘Telco’ line is the equivalent of 64Kbps. Yes, that’s right, that’s a ‘K’ for a thousand bytes of data. An internet connection is measured in megabytes or million bytes of data.

A ‘Telco’ line would cost on average $50 per month for 64Kbps worth of connectivity while the equivalent internet bandwidth would be 100Mbps – a significant increase in bandwidth per dollar.

So you can see why people are migrating their communications bandwidth from those fixed telco lines to SIP Trunks.

Bursting - On Demand Trunks

SIP Trunks are sized to support the average day. If you typically use 10 trunks for most of the business day and only go up to 15 trunks for an hour in the afternoon, we would recommend paying for 10 SIP Trunks on a monthly recurring basis and use 5 trunks on demand for your busy time.

We call that on-demand spike ‘bursting’.

Security with an SBC

Because you are using a data connection to now handle your voice calls you may question how we secure those lines.

Unity provides a Session Border Controller (SBC). This device allows us to do voice quality and reliability analysis and it is also your first line of defence against unwanted data attacks like DDoS.

SBCs provide quality of service checking, they manage network traversal and much, much more.

Bottom line, there is no risk in moving to SIP Trunks when an SBC is installed.

25-50% Cost Savings

By putting all those things together, the more efficient use of bandwidth, lower cost of internet bandwidth and bursting, customers can see anywhere from 25% to 50% savings per month over their standard ‘Telco’ line costs.

Number Portability and DIDs

SIP Trunks can do all that was done with your traditional trunks.

Your existing phone numbers can be ported over – just as they can be today moving from one carrier to another.

SIP Trunks support DID or Direct Inward Dial capability. With DID a call can be sent directly to a PBX extension.

Pay for Your Upgrade

If you are struggling to find new funds to update, upgrade or replace current, dated telephone systems while overpaying for ‘Telco’ lines, then migrating to SIP Trunks might be an option to consider.

By saving 25% to 50% every month by migrating to SIP Trunks it can create budget room to cover some or all of the cost of an upgrade or replacement.

The savings can be that significant!

Don't Let the Telco Pen You In

To prevent companies taking advantage of savings elsewhere, ‘Telcos’ have been getting customers to lock themselves into long contracts.

In some cases auto-renewing a long term, locked-in contract without the customer even realizing this has happened.

Check your current contracts now so it doesn’t prevent you access to long term savings – whether for SIP Trunks or other solutions.

Will my PBX Support SIP?

Originally PBXs that were not SIP enabled could not have SIP Trunks connected. Even when some systems claimed to be SIP enabled, it required additional, proprietary hardware and licenses.

Since then, Session Border Controllers or SBCs not only entered the market but have come down in price.

These non-proprietary devices allow SIP to be connected on one side and your existing PBX trunks on the other side. So no changes are required to the PBX. In addition, SBCs provide security, quality control and aid in problem resolution.

Now any system can support SIP Trunks.