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Business phone systems and the companies who sell them exist in a world all their own. The competition is stiff, with several different retailers and wholesalers carrying the same brands. The competition for used and refurbished business phones and business phone systems is even fiercer, as many companies are searching for equipment that can be used to expand their current system. Often, phone and phone system manufacturers engineer their products so that they aren't universal and will not work with a variety of other products.
This can be a poor selling point for buyers of new business phone systems, but if a company already has a system such as this in place and wants to expand, they have little choice but to use the same equipment. This is the reason why there is such a market for used business phone equipment. It is always much cheaper to hunt down a handset that is compatible with your system than it is to replace the entire system every time you need to add a few phone lines.
Additionally, so many businesses are ill prepared for purchasing the right phone system for their particular needs that they often end up replacing the system in a relatively short time. The old equipment can then be sold or refurbished and sold. Often, wholesalers and retailers will give discounts for new systems if they are able to take the system it is replacing as a "trade in". New and even used terminals, KTX add-ons and PBX equipment can be a major expense.
It is often necessary to find out how much it will cost to expand the type of system you have, when possible. In many instances, purchasing a slightly larger system than you what you currently need can save you money as down the road, even used equipment may cost more than what you would have been able to pay for brand new.
What is SIP Trunking?
In its simplest form, SIP trunking can be viewed as no different to an ordinary digital telephone line that is connected to a business phone system. In the way it is used, the purpose of what it is for, and if you went into an office picked up the phone and made a call you would not know if you were calling out on a standard digital telephone line or a SIP trunking service.
How is SIP Trunking Delivered?
SIP Trunking is delivered using the following two methods-
(i) As a data service over an existing xDSL or similar
(ii) Over a dedicated voice xDSL service or similar
Method (i) often routes calls over the public Internet, while method (ii) is a circuit supplied and normally guaranteed to provide a level of Quality of Service (QoS) as it links into the network backbone, therefore by-passing public Internet traffic.
Once the data circuit has been installed a connection then needs to be made to the actual business phone system, much the same as a conventional phone line needs too. If you would like to connect the SIP trunk to an older phone system (generally manufactured pre-2006) then it is likely a SIP converter unit would be required. The SIP converter unit connects to both the existing line ports on the phone system and to the xDSL SIP trunking circuit.
Many business phone systems manufactured post-2006 may require a license key, software upgrade or an additional piece of hardware to allow the SIP trunking service to be connected directly.
Why Use SIP Trunking?
SIP Trunking brings with it many new business benefits, the most important of which can be listed as follows-
- Lower line rental charges
- Lower call charges
- Free on network call charges (useful for multi-site businesses)
- Ability to retain telephone numbers no matter where the company moves
- Ability to have different National & International area codes numbers
- Instant call re-routing in the event of a disaster situation
SIP Trunking Summary
SIP trunking is now widely available, a proven technology and with SIP Providers working closely with business phone system manufactures it should help to install confidence in the marketplace for rapid take up.
However this is just part of the story, to ensure a SIP Trunking solution works as it should, correct calculations need to be undertaken in terms of the bandwidth that is made available to allow the required number of simultaneous calls to be made or received. The last, but my no means least, part of the equation that needs to be right is the supply, installation and configuration of the necessary SIP hardware and SIP software may be required.
With all of these elements correctly in place SIP trunking seems set to take the industry by storm over the next few years, benefiting many businesses and telecoms company's along the way.