Combining the Internet and telephony lets companies save money and tap new functionality.

features such as DID are frequently unavailable. SIP allows SAC International Steel to leverage IP for voice traffic, and gives them strong connectivity even in areas where more traditional services aren’t available.

When George Military College opened a new building, Totev says it only took about an hour to add the SIP trunks necessary to support the space, where traditional PRI lines likely would have taken at least several days to provide connectivity. “One benefit of SIP trunking is the fact that it utilizes the IT network,” Totev explains. “And we know that IT networks in general don’t have boundaries.” Faculty and students are now able to quickly access their school phone from their laptop and even from home, increasing productivity and reducing the time IT must spend on moves.

As more enterprises deploy UC solutions, they may discover that some of the features of their new platform aren’t available to them because they’re connected to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) through legacy PRI-type services. Instead of enjoying all the productivity and ease of use capabilities offered by today’s UC systems, administrators are often left with a stripped-down feature set. This includes service levels such as 64 kb-per-second VoIP, which Studt calls “lowest common denominator” services. “Things like hi-def audio, on-net calling, video — a lot of those capabilities end essentially at the enterprise boundary when you have to go to a PRI circuit,” he says. By leveraging SIP trunking, those media services can be delivered to just about anyone connected via SIP. “You basically preserve those rich features beyond the enterprise firewall,” Studt explains.

 

 

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