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connections. Rather than purchasing their own VoIP phone systems, enterprises pay for
VoIP capability on a monthly basis. This approach does require the enterprise to invest
in IP phones, however.
Whether an enterprise operates its own VoIP phone system or purchases a hosted
VoIP service, calls between individual locations on the enterprise network can be carried
in IP format end-to-end. This bypasses the traditional telecom network and eliminating
the costs associated with those calls, including per-minute access charges, typically
measured in a few cents or fractions of a cent. But enterprises also need the ability to
deliver calls to and receive calls from people outside the enterprise.
There are two ways to achieve this. One way is to hand calls to the traditional public
switched telephone network (PSTN) at the customer premises. This requires
the company to have traditional TDM voice trunks for calls destined for
or received from people or businesses outside the company. The ability
to hand calls to the PSTN at the customer premises is sometimes referred
to as gateway functionality.
SIP trunks essentially provide an alternative to exchanging PSTN traffic
An enterprise can
at the customer premises. Instead, all calls are delivered to and received
cut transport costs
from the communications service provider in IP format, and the service
by 25-40 percent
provider takes responsibility for converting traffic to and from the PSTN.
Access charges are only incurred at the far end of the call rather than at
by using SIP trunks
both ends of the call. (In either case, and depending on the customers
rather than using
long-distance provider, these charges may not appear on the customers
bill; instead the provider may build them into the cost of service.)
traditional TDM
VoIP and SIP also save money because IP connections are less costly
voice connectivity.
on a per-bit basis than traditional voice communications over the PSTN
Eastern Management
using time division multiplexing (TDM). Customers typically pay for SIP
Groups John Malone
connections on a per-trunk basis, but depending on the service provider
and how the network is configured, fewer trunks may be needed than
when traditional TDM trunks are used. (How that occurs will be discussed later in the
section on SIP architectures.)
SIP trunks also can save money because they give enterprises the option of running
the VoIP traffic over the same physical connection used for the companys data
communications. John Malone, CEO of Eastern Management Group, estimated an
enterprise can cut transport costs by 25-40 percent by using SIP trunks rather than by
using traditional TDM voice connectivity.
Despite these savings, Eastern Management Group estimated just 13 percent of
businesses use SIP for 100 percent of their toll traffic today. But thats changing fast,
the firm reported. By 2018, the firm predicted 42 percent of businesses will send all of
their toll traffic over SIP trunks. Eastern Management Groups findings were based on
a survey of enterprises in seven world regions and 22 vertical industries.
Infonetics Research also sees a big shift toward SIP trunks. More than a third (38 percent)
of North American companies in a March 2013 Infonetics survey said they use SIP
trunking for at least some of their PBX traffic, and Infonetics expects that number to
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increase to 55 percent in 2015. Between now and 2015, the research firm forecasts T1
connectivity for PBX traffic declining from 71 percent to 55 percent.
20%
40%
60%
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addressing and other information such as the priority of specific packets. Within the
service provider network, customers traffic is isolated from that of other customers
by establishing VPNs, which direct the customers traffic across pre-established paths,
essentially preventing individual network users from seeing another users VPN traffic.
Another way MPLS can save costs is when customer buys SIP trunks from the same
service provider that provides the companys data connectivity, and can combine both
types of traffic on the same connection. (If this option is chosen, it will be important to
set up the equipment to give priority to the voice and/or video traffic.)
Jeff Betteker, chief strategy officer for service provider One Source Networks, advised
channel partners to steer enterprise customers toward MPLS for their SIP needs in most
situations. MPLS, he said, provides a level of deterministic performance
across the network. In comparison with an Internet-based solution, he
said,when you look at a location you dont have to worry about the time
of day or peering point.
Jim LaBrec, vice president of channel partner Converging Technologies,
offered a similar take. MPLS is more cost-effective than a dedicated line
MPLS is more
and more reliable and secure than the public Internet, he said.
cost-effective than
Ethernet. Another approach for SIP trunk communications is to use a
a dedicated line
Layer 2 multipoint network based on the E-LAN standard created by the
Metro Ethernet Forum. This also encompasses VPLS connectivity Layer 2
and more reliable
multipoint Ethernet connectivity delivered over an MPLS network. E-LAN
and secure than the
services operate like an extension of a customers premises-based LAN and
are popular with enterprises that like to have a high level of control over
public Internet.
their network, including managing their own routing tables.
Converging Technologies
In contrast, Layer 3 MPLS services hand off routing table management ito
Jim LaBrec
the communications service provider a feature that appeals to customers
that do not have extensive IT resources or who simply want to use those
resources for other purposes.
Andrea LaPointe, account manager for channel partner NetSource Group, noted that
metro Ethernet services often are available only at relatively high data rates that may
provide more capacity than customers need simply for SIP trunking. Metro Ethernet
services are seeing strong growth rates, however, and as more enterprises move data
traffic to these networks, they also may want to move SIP traffic to Ethernet as well.
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Distributed uses SIP trunks at all locations, giving enterprises the ability to
hand off PSTN traffic at the closest service provider point of presence.
Enterprise
IP WAN
P PBX/UC SYSTEMS
DOWNLOAD
THIS INFOGRAPHIC
toolbox.channelpartnersonline.com
UC SERVER CLUSTER
Enterprise
IP WAN
P PBX/UC SYSTEMS
DOWNLOAD
THIS INFOGRAPHIC
toolbox.channelpartnersonline.com
UC SERVER CLUSTER
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Hybrid uses SIP trunks at some enterprise locations but not others.
Enterprise
IP WAN
P PBX/UC SYSTEMS
DOWNLOAD
THIS INFOGRAPHIC
toolbox.channelpartnersonline.com
UC SERVER CLUSTER
channelpartnersonline.com
volumes, this approach may not add substantially to communications costs. But if an
enterprise uses or plans to use SIP to support video communications, the impact could
be substantially greater as video consumes about 10 times the bandwidth of voice
communications, according to a Cisco estimate.
Another drawback to the centralized approach is that latency is increased when voice
or video calls go into and back out of the headquarters location, Cisco said.
A hybrid model shares the advantages and disadvantages of both the centralized and
distributed approach but may be the preferred strategy if an enterprise has
several key locations with high call volumes.
Using MPLS to
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