Remember when you had to buy complete albums made of hard plastic, and play them on a turntable just to hear your favorite song? Then along came the Internet and you could buy 99¢ digital versions of a single song that played on your existing computer. Music got cheaper, available in smaller increments, and easier to use.
Thats a lot like what happened to business telephony with the advent of VoIP and SIP trunks.
What in the world is a SIP trunk?
A SIP trunk is a money-saving technology with these three properties:
- A virtual connection. Think of it as a virtual phone line. It replaces the outdated counterpart of a T1 line or bundled phone line trunk.
- Uses Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). This is just a clever digital standard used to create, modify and terminate calls.
- Can transmit both voice and video. Voice and video are the two media staples of business.
So whats the big deal?
Easy. SIP trunks transmit and manage concurrent calls over the IP backbone of a VoIP carrier that is, over the cloud. And thats the kicker: By moving transmission and management to a cloud-based VoIP provider, such as Voxox, you can save your business lots of money.
Using this streamlined setup, SIP trunk networks leverage the cloud to greatly outperform less efficient setups and save businesses money.
Why should I use SIP trunks?
Scalability for starters. Need more lines? There's no need to roll a truck out to your location, just order as much capacity you need, as you need it. Have another location? There's no hardware to share, just turn up service at the other location and calls betwen the two are free. Positioning for the future is another big advantage. SIP trunks are ideal for video calls, since theyre already packet-switched and cloud-managed.
But of course the most attractive advantage to business is savings. Huge savings. Remember when you needed to add another T1 in order to add more phone lines? With SIP trunks, thats a thing of the past. Have another office location? Simple. No need for anything more expensive than plain old bandwidth.
So why are SIP trunks so affordable?
Basically there are four main reasons:
SIP trunks save you money because their infrastructure is less expensive.
SIP trunks eliminate the need for Primary Rate Interfaces (PRIs). Think of PRIs as transmission lines, such as 24-channel T1 lines, used to transmit phone calls. By eliminating the need for PRIs, SIP trunks avail businesses with huge infrastructure and scalability savings.
SIP trunks save you money because you get lower long distance rates.
Because of how they transmit digital data, the long distance rates of SIP trunks can be well under two cents per minute.
SIP trunks save you money because you can even get free local calling.
SIP trunks leverage a Wide Area Network (WAN) for local calls, making them essentially free. This is another way of saying SIP trunks sidestep the traditional phone company for local calls, routing them exclusively over the internet.
SIP trunks save you money because they allow incremental purchasing.
SIP trunks can be purchased in increments of 1. PRIs most commonly need to be purchased in channel increments of 23. And where you used to need one phone line for each phone extension in your office, with SIP trunks you only need a single line for each simultaneous phone call. Thats a big savings.
How do I get more information?
If youre considering making the switch to SIP trunks, Voxox offers a cost-saving solution, even if you have an investment in a traditional premise-based phone system.
