How SIP Trunking Can Save You Big Bucks

Being cost conscious is an important part of business management. When dealing with IT infrastructure, it can be challenging to save money without sacrificing quality. SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) trunking however, is an exception — it provides a streamlined service that can save companies significant costs, particularly on long distance, international and incoming toll-free calls.

What is SIP trunking used for?

At its core, SIP trunking allows your company to consolidate IT infrastructure and take advantage of lower rates for certain services. It is an important step in removing the distinction between telephone and data networks, and moving toward a single, IP-based company network.

SIP trunking is currently used for a number of purposes, however its primary function, as mentioned above, is to send and receive long distance, international and toll-free calls.

With the proper hardware and software, SIP trunking can also be used for instant messaging, video conferencing and transferring any other type of multimedia or real-time data.

Benefits of SIP trunking

The most notable impact of SIP trunking for most business owners is a reduction of phone bills. Because SIP trunking allows calls to be processed through an ITSP (Internet Technology Service Provider) instead of a public switch, the rates on phone calls — particularly incoming toll-free calls and international calls — can be substantial. This is especially true for companies with large international or toll-free call volumes.

SIP trunking is also far more flexible and scalable than traditional BRI (Basic Rate Interface) and PRI (Primary Rate Interface) systems. Instead of buying lines in blocks of 24 or 32, companies can simply add and remove bandwidth as needed — typically for a fraction of the cost. This also means that if your company has a specific time in which more lines are needed, you can limit the increased bandwidth to those specific times, further reducing unnecessary fees while ensuring your company has the bandwidth it needs.

Depending on your IT infrastructure and company needs, the amount of money SIP trunking saves will vary. However, some studies indicate that SIP trunking can save anywhere from 20 to 60 percent when compared to TDM (Time-Division Multiplexing) trunks. These savings are on top of the fact that SIP trunking removes the need for an office PBX (Private Branch Exchange), and eliminates any need for BRI and PRI subscription fees.

The benefits of SIP trunking also extends to clients and customers — phone lines can be set for almost any area and country code. This helps protect clients and customers from the cost of calling a long distance or international number, and can give the impression that your company has a greater global reach.

This is a guest post by Chris Surdenik, CEO of Call One. He holds degrees from the University of Illinois and Northwestern University. Call One is one of Chicago’s premier providers of telecommunication services, and is very well-known for its expertise in SIP and SIP trunking solutions, among other areas of concentration.

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