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SIP Trunking for the Enterprise
White Paper communicate / manage / protect / optimize / connect / communicate / manage / pro And What it Can Do For You
anage / protect / optimize / connect / communicate / manage / protect / optimize / con An Informational Paper Authored by Steve Shepard
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SIP Trunking for the Enterprise And What Can it Do For You
Authored by: Steve Shepard, President Shepard Communications Group, LLC Commissioned by XO Communications
Table of Contents SIP Trunking for the Enterprise — How Did We Get Here?
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What Exactly is SIP Trunking?
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The Combination for Success — The New Age is Here
What is Enterprise SIP Trunking (ESIP)?
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Key Advantages and Business Benefits of Enterprise SIP Trunking
Key Advantages
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Business Benefits
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Options When You Have a Private Network Already in Place
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Added Business Continuity
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Is an Enterprise SIP Trunking Solution Right for You?
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Summary
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SIP Trunking for the Enterprise — How Did We Get Here? Over the last ten years, telephony as a service has evolved. How it works, what it does, and how it is used by both consumers and businesses has changed. The telephone network was originally designed to transport voice calls, something it did well. Over time, the market demanded much more. In response, and thanks to the signaling network known as SS7, the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) was enhanced to deliver a broader array of supplementary services.
“When SIP Trunking is deployed in the network, telephony becomes a Web application. It integrates seamlessly with other Internet services, and the convergence of voice and data including
Enter the debut of the Private Branch Exchange (PBX) which put more control into the hands of the enterprise’s technical support personnel. The Internet and Internet Protocol (IP) became accepted and pervasive. With the introduction of Voice over IP (VoIP), the cost and complexity of operating the network declined (a boon to the service provider) and the range and richness of services available to the customer increased. The diversity of the telecommunications services demand profile forced a redefinition of the network architecture by which services are delivered. Instead of delivering services from deep within the core of the network, it became more efficient to move the point of delivery out to the edge, particularly for enterprise companies. But because SS7 was designed as a core-based protocol, it could not meet the new demands being placed on the network. A new solution was required; that solution is the Session Initiation Protocol, commonly known as SIP Trunking.
video, audio and image transfer becomes real.”
What Exactly is SIP Trunking? Like SS7, SIP Trunking is a signaling protocol designed to set up communication sessions in a network, but this time, in an IP network. These sessions include everything from a simple phone call to a multi-location, multimedia conference. Because SIP Trunking was designed to support a wide array of service types, new and innovative capabilities become possible such as Web page click-to-call, Instant Messaging with incorporated buddy list access, and IP PBX support. SIP Trunking is a simple, command-response protocol that is operationally similar to the protocol that governs the functionality of the Web: HTTP. When SIP Trunking is deployed in the network, telephony becomes a Web application. It integrates seamlessly with other Internet services, and the convergence of voice and data including video, audio and image transfer becomes real. SIP Trunking has become the basis for the next-generation network. It undoubtedly will be deployed by all service providers, from traditional wireline players, to mobile providers, to cable companies offering VoIP, to ISPs. SIP Trunking facilitates the delivery of everything from traditional voice services to a host of capabilities such as convergence, IMS, femtocell deployment, online gaming, voice and video conferencing, among many others. And SIP Trunking is an internationally recognized standard (a subset of the IP protocol suite), meaning that interoperability is a non-issue.
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SIP Trunking for the Enterprise
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The Combination for Success — The New Age is Here The flexibility and richness of IP is combined with the highly customizable nature of the PBX, creating the IP-PBX. The result is extraordinary. Now we have technology emerging with the power to redefine the way businesses communicate. The flexibility and richness of IP, the power and control of the PBX, and the breadth that SIP Trunking brings to the table shine a bright light for Enterprise businesses. Enterprise SIP Trunking is the optimal result.
What is Enterprise SIP Trunking (ESIP)? “In addition to hosted unified communications, SIP Trunking and its offspring like XO Enterprise SIP Trunking will be the transport with which unified communications is carried.” ~ Rebecca Swensen, IDC
Network gurus for multi-location businesses know the process of interconnecting the branches to facilitate effective site-to-site communications is complicated, expensive and time-consuming. In many cases companies rely on several service providers to provide full connectivity across their entire enterprise geography. As service demands change, when more bandwidth is required to a particular site, for example – the modifications required to make that happen can be costly in terms of both money and time. To further complicate matters, many multilocation businesses have grown through acquisitions and mergers, resulting in an inherited mix of on-premise equipment types and local services. This collage of premise configurations makes seamless site to site communications and a unified customer experience next to impossible. The solution? Enterprise SIP Trunking. Enterprise SIP Trunking is a powerful new solution designed for multi-location businesses that enables the business to serve its distributed branches with telephone service through one or a handful of centralized PBXs. It can provide centralized trunking and eliminate the need for PRIs or business lines at each location. Enterprise SIP Trunking also enables the business to carry all voice and data over its private Wide Area Network (WAN), resulting in more efficient use of the network. It does all of this with built-in load-sharing capabilities to provide bandwidth where and when it’s needed to fully satisfy demand. Some SIP Trunking for the Enterprise services also provide bursting capabilities to accommodate seasonal demands or catastrophic network events.
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Before Enterprise SIP Trunking, it has been common for a multi-location business to have a telecom infrastructure similar to the network illustrated in Figure 1. Because of the company’s many locations, it was often necessary to engage multiple service providers to ensure connectivity between each location’s PBX and the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). In most cases, these connections were either ISDN PRI connections or IP trunks.
Figure 1: Typical SIP Trunking Configuration before an Enterprise SIP Trunking deployment. Branch 2
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+ Branch 5 Branch 6
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SIP Trunking for the Enterprise
With the arrival of Enterprise SIP Trunking, things change. Instead of connections to each branch and through multiple carriers, it is now possible to provide an increased level of connectivity, with added redundancy – by consolidating those connections through a small number of locations and with a single carrier, while saving costs and streamlining telecom operations, as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Simplified connectivity following the introduction of an Enterprise SIP Trunking deployment.
MPLS IP-VPN Network
Branch 2 Branch 3
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XO Communications
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Key Advantages and Business Benefits of Enterprise SIP Trunking Not only does Enterprise SIP Trunking eliminate the need to buy and manage lines for each and every location, it also streamlines the operation of the telecommunications infrastructure using a centralized PBX, rather than managing multiple, disparate systems at the premise. Key Advantages: • • • •
“Not only does Enterprise SIP Trunking eliminate the need to buy and manage lines for each and every location, it also streamlines the operation of the telecommunications infrastructure using a
Lower operating costs through centralizing communications facilities Reduce location equipment needs and connectivity requirements Enable flexible redundancy Allow bursting: capacity can be shared seamlessly and fluidly across the entire enterprise when needed • Use existing WAN for voice communications, resulting in more dynamic and efficient network resource utilization
Business Benefits A primary and most important benefit that comes from Enterprise SIP Trunking is the degree of control that a customer enjoys, and the flexibility that it makes possible. 1.
Consolidating voice and data over a single, converged IP network greatly reduces the cost and complexity of administration and management. Fundamentally, costs are reduced as the capacity required for voice and data sessions is shared across the entire network.
2.
Centralizing the PBX equipment in one or a few sites results in capital savings, greater control over site to site calling, and a unified customer experience. The headache of trying to control communications across a myriad of premise configurations is gone, leaving only a router and phones at the premise.
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Enterprise SIP Trunking allows for the consolidation of local and long distance inbound and outbound calling across the entire enterprise, regardless of the calling and called parties’ physical locations.
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Enterprise SIP Trunking makes bandwidth management easy. By allowing for instantaneously available bandwidth on a demand basis, inbound and outbound calls always have adequate resources available to them.
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And finally, Enterprise SIP Trunking allows for traffic prioritization: Voice can always be assigned the highest priority among the various traffic types using the connection, thus guaranteeing assured quality-of-service (QoS).
centralized PBX, rather than managing multiple, disparate systems at the premise.”
Of course these provide just a taste of benefits apparent to a business with Enterprise SIP Trunking.
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SIP Trunking for the Enterprise
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Options When You Have a Private Network Already in Place In many cases, companies have already invested in their own private networks, typically MPLS IP VPNs, but sometimes Private Lines or even Dedicated Internet Access. Enterprise SIP Trunking allows a company to take advantage of that investment by overlaying voice calling on the existing network, further stretching the investment made. For example, XO even allows SIP Trunking to be used with another carriers data network. Those same companies may have also invested in VoIP as part of their evolution and now Enterprise SIP Trunking allows them to take advantage of those investments through seamless integration of those assets into the mix. And because the enterprise most likely has its own highly-skilled IT department with deep knowledge of network and system performance, discrete control of network availability and service performance can be conducted in-house. This results in differentiable quality-of-service and assured business-class call quality across the enterprise.
Added Business Continuity Network Survivability is critical to most companies, and because Enterprise SIP Trunking relies on IP, a broad array of business continuity options become possible. These options are much more difficult – and expensive – to deliver over the legacy switched network. If one route becomes unusable or excessively congested, Enterprise SIP Trunking re-routes the connection across an alternate route, with no change in quality of service. Finally, because the service can be delivered by a single provider, far more flexible pricing is available due to the consolidation of resources. The power accrues to the customer. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Want to know how much you can save? Use our eSIP Savings Estimator.
Is an Enterprise SIP Trunking Solution Right for You? So how do you know whether Enterprise SIP Trunking is an optimal solution for your business? Ask yourself these questions: 1. Do you have more than five operating locations? 2. Does the geographically-dispersed nature of your company have you using more than one carrier for your telecommunications needs? 3. Do you have inadequate leverage with your carriers? 4. Are you spending too much for long-distance connections and voice calling? 5. Are you spending too much capital on media gateways and PBX network connections? 6. Are you uncomfortable with the level of survivability available in your network? 7. Could you get more value out of your IP-PBX installation?
If you answered ‘yes’ to one or more of these questions, then your business may be a viable candidate for an Enterprise SIP Trunking solution. The cost savings, added functionality and survivability alone make it a technology progression that is worth serious consideration.
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Summary 1.
Eliminate the need to purchase and manage multiple business lines from distinct service providers.
2.
Consolidate local and long distance services and helps to accelerate the transition to VoIP less a significant up-front investment.
3.
Offer a high capacity connection to primary locations that in turn connect to your private network, as required, to serve additional branches.
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Take advantage of service delivered by a single provider, with far more flexible pricing due to the consolidation of resources. The power accrues to you; the customer – it doesn’t get much better than that.
About Steve Shepard Dr. Steven Shepard, Ph.D. is president of the Shepard Communications Group. A professional writer, educator and industry analyst with more than 25 years of experience in the technology industry, Dr. Shepard specializes in international telecommunications issues, the social implications of technological incursion and the analysis of financial issues related to technology-dependent businesses. He is the author of 45 books on a wide variety of topics and regularly speaks to audiences throughout the world, and has clients in more than 50 countries. Mr. Shepard can be reached at Steve@ShepardComm.com.
About XO® Enterprise SIP XO Communications has expertise in enterprise networking, particularly with next-generation network architectures, and makes for a powerful partner for your enterprise connectivity needs. The XO® Enterprise SIP Trunking solution provides a complete, end-to-end option for organizations with the challenge of interconnecting multiple
geographically-dispersed locations. With over nine years’ experience in owning and operating a VoIP-based solution, XO carries over 25 Billion VoIP minutes annually and serves over 25,000 businesses with VOIP services. In addition to providing integrated voice and data services to businesses and enterprises, XO also powers many other telecom providers’ VoIP infrastructure with high volume VoIP Origination and Termination services.
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© Copyright 2010. XO Communications, LLC. All rights reserved. XO, the XO design logo, and all related marks are registered trademarks of XO Communications, LLC.
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