If you’re here, you’ve heard the term SIP trunking before. You probably even know what it is. And, because of the enormous cost savings and process efficiencies, you’re all set up. But the question is, what now? This post should help shed some light on how you can get the most out of your brilliant decision to become a SIP trunker.
Secure it
Some (not you) shy away from SIP trunking because they’ve heard horror stories of devious fraudsters stealing access to a businesses phone service and dialing up a mile-high phone bill in the night. Or, maybe worse, listening in and spilling corporate financial secrets all over the World Wide Web.
Fraudsters can’t get in through your SIP connection. SIP signaling is the call set up and tear down information; it sends your credentials using transmission specific encoding. Which makes decoding a very close relative of impossible.
Security is only ever as strong as your weakest link. Vulnerabilities in your network security (including password complexity) provide an access point to your system that fraudsters exploit any way they can. So lock down your network, children.
As for listening in, one quote goes something like this, “Give me two paperclips and a headset, and I can listen to all your calls as they ride the copper.” That’s not SIP trunking’s fault. If you absolutely need a guarantee your conversations aren’t heard, have them through two cans and a string you never lose sight of.
Control it
Native, in-house SIP trunking gives you unprecedented control of your telecommunications connection. That means numbers and line capacity when you need them, to handle growth or run promotions. And it means you define your billing structure with a calling plan mix you can customize on the fly, as your needs and volumes evolve, without paying for more than you use. It’s all manageable from your account dashboard – your communications command center.
Rely on it
SIP trunking RFC provides standards and structure that make sure endpoints can communicate without getting confused, throwing a tantrum, and stomping all over your connection. Service providers like Flowroute, that follow these guidelines, deliver a steadfast connection you won’t ever need to give a time out. So you can trust SIP as your main connection, take it off the backup bench.
Make the most of the quality
Remember when cell phones first came out? The quality wasn’t very good. But now, there are more cell phones than people on the planet. The technology caught up to the idea.
SIP trunking is the same. The technology has been around for over 15 years. In that time, the components needed to build a strong, reliable voice transmission have evolved from the early days of conversations that sounded like two robots in a 1970’s sci-fi flop.
Modern connections can be made much more directly and over higher quality channels than was possible just a few years ago. Of course, there are still providers more interested in cost cutting than route quality. Luckily bad audio is as easy to notice, the give away is you can’t hear anything. So listen up, and never feel obligated to stick with a bad connection.
Scale with it
I’ve heard managed VoIP salesmen describe SIP trunking as a solution only suitable for users with one very large location. But because of its lightweight, scalable nature, SIP trunking is a strong and cost efficient way to link your internal IP communications to the external PSTN no matter how big you are. We have customers that manage SIP systems for many remote offices from one central location.
Based on a survey of industry experts, a report published by Channel Partners Magazine asserts that SIP is expected to be “the most accepted form of dial tone services for business in the next decade,” surpassing T1 and PSTN lines across the board. One respondent highlighted the fact that, “SIP is most cost-effective when deployed along enterprise-level clients, with over 50 locations or so.” Use SIP to enable and feed your growth.
Be compatible
SIP protocol was designed to work with old equipment, new equipment and equipment yet to come. Because the protocol is simple, it is easy to integrate into application and hardware programing so that SIP enabled devices can interface without having to learn all kinds of awkward handshakes.
You can even get your analogue system talking through a PBX with FXS and FXO ports so you can route calls using a SIP provider without a massive hardware upgrade. Save now while you grow at your own pace.
Bridge technology
SIP is a tool used to transport messages over variant media, in effect forming a bridge between technologically diverse endpoints. In the case of your Internet telephone service provider, SIP is a gateway between your internal IP network and the Plain Old Telephone Network.
In 1958, you could get by with only telephone lines running in and out of your business. Now, just to maintain expected levels of reachability you require multiple methods of connection making. SIP trunking is at the center of the technology convergence web. As communication technologies emerge and evolve, SIP stands as a link to unify and optimize your suite of communications platforms.
Use SIP to link your WebRTC, Unified Communications, and VoIP systems to the PSTN to create a more robust and complete organizational communications framework.
Forget it
A good SIP trunking connection is like those springy doorstoppers along the baseboards of your house; they do their job by design, and you probably forgot they’re even there. If you’re always thinking about your connection, there’s something wrong. A strong SIP trunk should work in the background, seamlessly connecting your calls where they need to go and staying out of your thoughts so you can devote them where they’re needed most.
