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A new initiative by Sprint (News - Alert) will bring SIP trunking to a dozen European countries, allowing businesses in those nations to cost-effectively experience the benefits of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and enhancing network efficiencies by converging all voice and data traffic on the Sprint Global MPLS network.

Session Initiative Protocol (SIP) trunking allows businesses to replace the costly "physical trunks" that connect a PBX (News - Alert) to a service provider network with "virtual trunks" over a single IP connection. This new SIP trunking will be available in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Sprint’s solution is specifically designed to meet the needs of the distributed enterprise, allowing multiple locations throughout the European region to connect over the same set of SIP trunks while preserving local telephone numbers, calling plans and emergency services. This effort reduces the overall number of trunks needed to implement SIP trunking in the available European locations, thereby streamlining the network and cutting operating costs for a business.

One early adopter of SIP trunking was CORT, a Berkshire Hathaway company and a provider of home and office furniture for more than 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies and the U.S. government.

“SIP Trunking has helped CORT eliminate redundant telephone and data networks and reduce the number of PBXs thus streamlining our network, bringing us significant cost savings, quality of service and helping to ensure business continuity," said Tom Mattingly, project manager of information technology and product development at CORT.

"Flexibility and scalability are key advantages of SIP trunking and we are pleased to extend these benefits to businesses with operations in Europe," said Tim Donahue (News - Alert), vice president, international and solutions sales at Sprint. "Sprint's simple and flexible MPLS solution is the foundation for SIP Trunking and allows IP PBXs to deliver the features and functionality businesses are accustomed to using for voice calling along with Class of Service support of other real-time data."