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Part 1 of this two-part series discussed the opportunities SIP Trunking offers the service provider community, including increased customer retention. In part 2, we will discuss SIP Trunking from and enterprise perspective, specifically how SIP Trunking enables enterprises to expand their communications options.

 

Moving over to the customer side, it should be more apparent as to why SIP Trunking – both 1.0 and 2.0 - will be of interest. For conventional telephony, SIP Trunking provides not just lower expenditures, but cost certainty. Businesses with MPLS are already getting the cost savings from intra-company calling, but SIP Trunking allows them to extend this beyond their network to partners and customers. Furthermore, hosted solutions provide enough FMC capabilities to support mobile devices. The more extensively SIP Trunking can route calls over IP, the greater cost certainty the business will have.

 

The FMC/mobility feature is important not just for cost savings. Mobility is a major reality of working life today, and in many markets, some employees never work out of an office. If given a choice, employees would prefer to keep business and personal communications separate. In terms of privacy, they would rather not give out their personal number to get in touch with customers, and for their employer this just doesn’t look professional.

 

With hosted SIP Trunking, it is easier to issue DIDs that extend to the mobile device and have shared line appearances. This makes the mobile experience easier for the employee to manage, and for the employer, they get to keep company data and communications running over their network. In a more 2.0-style vein, SIP Trunking is important for mobility where all forms of communication must be recorded for compliance or auditing purposes.

 

Continuing with 2.0, where SIP Trunking gets more interesting for businesses is with data and video communications. In these modes, the endpoint shifts from the phone to the PC screen or the video display. SIP Trunking adds considerable value to data networks – MPLS – and makes multimedia communications more effective for employees. Technology can be intimidating for end users, but the ability to self-provision features and customize their communications environment breaks down these barriers and empowers them to use these tools to improve their productivity.

 

This brings us back to the bigger picture for adopting SIP Trunking. Employees can feel empowered with these new capabilities, but so can the enterprise itself. SIP Trunking allows them to consolidate their telecom infrastructure with a more distributed network where multiple branches can be controlled from a single site. Now capacity can be shared across the WAN in a more efficient manner, while still retaining centralized control for network monitoring and security. This makes it easier to extend presence and mobility across the enterprise and take advantage of 2.0-style services that utilize these modes. Furthermore, SIP Trunking provides the foundation for 2.0 by addressing the complexities around integrating these services with core business software platforms such as OCS or Notes.

 

In this context, SIP Trunking is really a strategic decision. Cost savings are important, but SIP Trunking 2.0 is more about efficiency and ease of growth. Consolidation means having a converged network, simpler management, faster time to market, and fewer carriers to deal with. SIP Trunking means having flexible options, scalability, ease of deployment, and more features. As a result, service providers can focus more on serving their customers and the same holds for their customers. Once the basic benefits of SIP Trunking – 1.0 – have been realized, there will be a natural desire for more. We believe the market is ready for more and with SIP Trunking being 2.0-enabled now, service providers will be well positioned to meet the demand in 2010.

 

Read the first part of this series, SIP Trunking 2.0 – The Service Provider Perspective here.