Over the next ten years incumbents across Europe will phase out ISDN and PSTN networks and move to an all-IP environment with SIP trunking. With millions of companies to migrate, this will take some time, but there are plenty of advantages for businesses who make the move now.
Service providers are moving at different paces. In the UK, BT announced in May that it intends to have all its customers migrated off ISDN by 2025. With 3.2 million active ISDN channels this is a large task. Others are looking to move faster. Deutsche Telekom, for example, has set a date of 2018, whilst Orange has targeted 2020. But in general by the middle of the next decade ISDN and PRI lines will have been retired.
Taking the next step with SIP trunking
Up until now, voice regulations have been a hurdle for enterprises looking to move fully to SIP trunking. But they are liberalizing in many countries, allowing enterprises to sever their relationship with the incumbent through SIP trunking. Orange Business, for example, offers partially unplugged SIP trunking services (includes inbound and outbound calls) in 50 countries and fully-unplugged SIP trunking services (adds emergency calls and non-geographical numbers) in 25 countries.
As more businesses switch to SIP trunking, market research company Infonetics expects the worldwide market to hit US$8 billion in 2018. They identify that “SIP trunking adoption is growing as businesses seek to improve the reliability and lower the cost of communication services.”
From an enterprise perspective SIP trunking is a powerful, scalable and flexible solution that is capable of streamlining communication budgets and integrating with cloud services. Communications are more resilient as trunks can be switched in case of disruption or a disaster. Calls are up to 40% cheaper than ISDN lines and with SIP trunking you don’t have to buy extra lines you don’t need. If you want 100 trunks you can have 100 trunks!
Full convergence
SIP trunking also enables the full convergence between voice and data networks for multinational companies. Enterprise can get rid of local ISDN lines and PSTN Gateways while carrying voice over IP, like all other applications! This simplifies unified communication design and the number of providers, while reducing recurring cost.
There are significant economy of scales by aggregating all the voice traffic through central redundant regional SIP trunks terminating in the UC cluster or data center. Offices can also be connected to audio conferencing bridges using SIP trunking to enable on-net audio conferences and rates.
SIP trunking also supports the vital trend for mobile working. Employees who work remotely can have calls sent to their smartphone or PC, without any forward charges being incurred. It also integrates directly with unified communications systems as they natively support SIP trunking as the default interface.
Why choose Orange Business for SIP trunking?
Orange Business Solutions is a recognized market leader in SIP trunking, offering services in 141 countries, with off-net capabilities in 88 countries. We have extensive experience in transforming legacy systems and deploying SIP trunking internationally.
Security is a vital part of SIP trunking and we build rigorous security into our MPLS network on top of the voice security solution. In addition we use session border control (SBC) demarcation between all network elements and can encrypt voice if necessary.
Interoperability is a key factor in the success of your SIP deployment, due to the number of network components involved. That is why we run an extensive testing program for major new releases when a voice platform is upgraded and have a continually updated list of software, devices and tools we know work seamlessly with our offerings.
According to The SIP School's annual SIP Survey deploying SIP trunking works when there is competency in deployment, but examples of poor SIP trunking still exist. These are predominantly down to quick installations that haven’t considered quality of service and ongoing service management and support.
The report highlighted the fact that to provide a successful SIP trunking solution collaboration is essential to “to work together and continually test products and services for interoperability so that it’s not the customer’s premises that becomes the test bed”.
Orange Business provides a one-stop-shop for your network, data center and connectivity. We will help you with your SIP trunking migration every step of the way. Read our paper on the ISDN switch-off here and browse to our campaign page to find out even more.
Jean-Sébastien is Business Developer for Unified Communications Services within Orange Business focusing on transversal, indirect and complex deals. Since 15 years, in the telecom industry, Jean-Sébastien has been worked in various roles such as mobile and broadband network rollout, service and product management.