Last week, I was talking to a few customers about the value of SIP Trunking and provided them with a copy of our SIP Trunking For Dummies book.  I always felt this book was a great source of information and amazingly we are coming up on the one-year anniversary of its first publication. 
 
Since there are still many questions about SIP trunking, I thought now would be a good time to write up a quick refresher on why enterprises should consider it in the first place. I’m not talking about the obscure technical reasons (e.g., transcoding, SIP header manipulation) or the obvious financial reasons (i.e., lower monthly lease rates), but the not so obvious, yet obviously beneficial reasons why SIP trunking makes sense.
 
#1. It cuts your network complexity in half
Right now, many enterprises use different vendors for their legacy voice (PRI, BRI etc) and data services.  Aside from the technical issues of maintaining different networks, there are also issues of vendor management (i.e. contracts to review and sign) and just more “stuff” to deal with for your overworked IT staff. With SIP trunking, you can get voice, video AND data together on that same “pipe” from your service provider, who sends you one monthly bill.  You can still keep the modes, such as voice and data separate if you want (e.g., buy voice services from an Internet Telephony Service Provider and data services from an Internet Service Provider), but for large enterprises, unifying voice, video and data on SIP trunks reduces a lot of headaches and finger-pointing in the data center. Further, as your company grows, all of the necessary infrastructure to handle additional voice/data traffic will already be in place.
 
#2. It gets rid of unnecessary “boxes”
No, not the empty, cardboard kind. I’m talking about all the hardware required for T1/E1 connections plus those expensive, legacy voice gateways. SIP trunking eliminates the need for multiple voice network access connections and local gateways.  The consolidation makes your network easier to administer and mange.  SIP Trunking is all about lowering your overall capital and operating costs for communications.
 
#3. It makes deploying new communication applications and services much simpler.
Have you ever tried to add Unified Communication applications into a legacy voice network?  Not so easy is it.   How about implementing compliance recording across multiple sites?  With SIP trunking enterprises can centralize and deploy applications from a single server across all their enterprise—even extend new services to remote workers in other parts of the world. Moreover, SIP trunking combined with an SBC allows you centrally manage things such as dial plans, compliance recording as well as billing and cost accounting records.  These simplified architectures promote interoperability while simultaneously allowing your business to reduce costs, rapidly deploy new applications and solutions, and grow with your business.
 
#4. It scales bigger, fast.
What’s your lead time for getting a new PRI or BRI connection?  30, 60, 90 days?  Who can afford to wait that long for increased capacity?  The SIP trunking model is very different.  Instead of waiting to add TDM-based trunks, that likely also require additional hardware when you need to grow, you simply call up you provider to add bandwidth. Today’s business environment is extremely competitive and dynamic…can you afford to wait for more capacity?
 
#5  Turn All Calls into Local Calls
Instead of providing customers with an “800 number,” a SIP Trunking service provider with points of presence in multiple U.S. cities could establish local numbers in each city for customers to call. Those calls can then be centrally terminated into your data center.  Once in your network, they can stay in your network and off your legacy trunks – in other words “on-net” calls. While you are paying for bandwidth, you are not paying any per-minute charges or monthly legacy trunk costs for those calls…wouldn’t you agree this is a much less expensive model!
 
There you have it 5 simple reasons to invest in SIP Trunking.  And, when you combine with a Sonus SBC, you get unparalleled performance and functionality.  Stay tuned for more on that subject