Two Types of SIP Providers

In my experience, I’ve come across two types of organizations who sell SIP service. The first type is your traditional LEC or CLEC who offers SIP as a “me too” service – or in addition to their traditional analog lines, PRIs, Internet T1′s, MPLS, etc. Often they will require that you purchase their T1, provision 23 to 30 SIP trunks on it, and charge you the same as a standard PRI. Additionally, they can’t / won’t offer the additional flexibility of SIP trunks (porting numbers across calling areas, fail over,etc). I haven’t seen very many of these products sold by agents or direct sales reps. It makes sense to me. Why sell an unknown (SIP) when you can sell the good old all mighty PRI? After all, there are no cost savings advantages. Note, this is me generalizing. It’s not the case with all SIP providers. In fact, I’ve recently worked with one that requires you to use their T1, but will offer the porting flexibility and cost savings benefits of SIP (.01/minute LD, 40+SIP trunks on the T1, etc).

No wonder less than 10% of businesses have moved over to SIP. It’s not because it doesn’t work, it’s because they don’t know about it! Your average telecommunications sales representative isn’t educating their customers.

The second type of SIP provider breaks the traditional mold of telecommunications providers. They can offer SIP trunks over your own bandwidth, can port and source numbers from most areas of the country, can provide fail-over, and are usually MUCH less than your traditional CLECs and LECs.

I can’t tell you which is better. That depends on your comfort level, business needs, etc. However, I am confident that the second type of SIP provider has the model that makes the most sense. Because of that, they will become the next generation of carrier services.

Maybe a mixture of the two makes sense. I have a customer that used a Paetec dynamic T1 (voice and Internet) as their primary connection. However, they provisioned Broadvox SIP trunks over the Internet portion of the T1 to port numbers from remote locations. They are a heating and cooling company with a virtual presence in a number of remote towns / states surrounding their main office. Paetec couldn’t port or source those numbers, Broadvox could. Now their remote customers can dial a local number and ring the corporate office via Broadvox SIP trunks provisioned over Paetec Internet. Also, corporate users can call into those areas and out-pulse the local caller ID – again providing that hometown local presence. Oh, those calls are toll free too!

Does placing SIP calls over the Internet cause quality issues?

So I’m being lazy today.  This is a copy and paste from the FAQ section of the our website: http://www.access-techweb.com/faq.php Which by the way, there is some good information about SIP and it’s practical application up there…..

With SIP trunks, voice gets converted into IP packets. These IP packets then get sent to the SIP provider (and vice versa). Because voice is real-time sensitive, it requires that the voice packets arrive within a certain amount of time and in the right order (along with a number of other factors like jitter, packet loss, etc). If some of the voice packets get dropped or if they are sent too slow, audible quality issues can occur. So the quality of the connection between the customer’s phone system and the SIP provider directly affects the quality of the call. The connection between the customer’s phone system and the SIP provider varies. It can be a direct connection or over the Internet. The Internet is essentially a “network of networks” in which all types of data traffic (voice, video, email, web, etc) travel. Because the voice packets are “co-mingling” with other packets carrying various forms of information for different customers, it is considered a “best effort” form of delivery. This is why a dedicated connection between the customer’s network and the SIP provider is “technically” the best method for delivering SIP trunks. If that dedicated connection is also going to be used to send other types of data traffic (web surfing, email, etc), it needs to prioritize the voice packets over all other data packets (this is called Quality of Service).

That being said, a dedicated connection to the SIP provider is often too expensive for smaller customers. Delivering SIP trunks over a high bandwidth / low cost Internet connection is popular due to the enormous cost-savings. MOST quality issues are a result of a “bottleneck” or too much data on the” last mile” of the Internet connection. The last mile is the connection between the customer’s network and their Internet Service Provider (ISP). This can occur if the customer is trying to place SIP calls over the Internet while downloading large Internet files (for example). Bottleneck issues can be resolved by asking the Internet Service Provider (ISP) to provide quality of service (QOS – the prioritization of voice packets over all other traffic). Low-cost / High bandwidth providers will usually not provide this service. Another option would be to install a separate, dedicated Internet connection for the SIP trunks. This eliminates any possible bottleneck issues (as long as the bandwidth can accommodate the number of simultaneous SIP calls needed). (See FAQ How much bandwidth do I need for SIP trunks?) Last, it is always a good idea to use a Tier 1 or Tier 2 Internet provider to minimize the “hops” or networks the call must traverse to get to the SIP provider.

The best way to finish answering this question would be to give real-world examples of our customers with varying sizes, Internet traffic, and call volume:

Very small company with light phone traffic: Many of our smaller customers (usually 5 or less trunks) or branch offices have provisioned their SIP trunks over the same broadband Internet connection they use for standard Internet traffic. Because Internet and voice share the same “pipe” the amount of Internet traffic that customer generates and the size of the Internet pipe can affect the quality of the voice traffic. If there are quality issues in these circumstances, the cause is usually found in that “last mile” or the connection from the Internet Service Provider (ISP) to the customer. If the Internet and voice traffic is light, this can be a very good (and very cheap) solution for the customer.

Small to medium-sized company with moderate phone traffic: We generally recommend that the company who needs over 5 trunks with moderate phone traffic install a dedicated broadband Internet connection. Because most quality issues arise in the “last mile” or the connection between the customer and the Internet Service Provider (ISP), keeping standard Internet traffic (which is bandwidth-intensive) and voice traffic separate is a good idea. This eliminates any issues that arrive due to Internet traffic interfering with the voice traffic.

Medium to large company with moderate to large amounts of phone traffic: In these circumstances, we usually recommend that the company install a dedicated connection between their premise and the SIP provider (ITSP). Often, the SIP provider can provide this connection by bonding T1s for larger amounts of bandwidth. The SIP provider can also provide Internet access with Quality of Service for voice over this connection as well. Again, depending on the amount of voice and Internet traffic, the recommended connectivity solution and design will change. We have large customers who already have large Internet connection (DS3, OC3, etc) in which they’ve chosen to provision their SIP trunks over. Although these forms of connectivity are more expensive than your typical DSL or cable, the cost savings are still substantial after you consider long distance savings, the elimination of copper trunks at remote offices (with SIP, those numbers can port to the corporate office), better use of bandwidth (twice as many SIP trunks can be provisioned over the same amount of bandwidth as traditional PRI trunks), and other cost-savings factors.

How to compare your current telecommunication costs with SIP

So I’ve talked quite a bit about SIP and cost savings.  I shared how SIP saves money.  But up to this point, the dollars are not very tangible.  How can you look at your current telecommunication costs and prepare an equivalent SIP configuration?  Well because SIP is so flexible, and you can deliver it over any IP connection, the cost can vary depending on your situation.  I’ll outline what I usually do when preparing an analysis for my customers.  This usually generates a financial model in which further dialog can refine the numbers.

Try this:

1.) First inventory all of your current telcom costs – the number of analog lines, PRI’s, outbound long distance minutes and charges, inbound (toll-free) minutes and charges, and international calling.

2.) Take the number of analog lines  and PRI channels and multiply by $12.75 per SIP trunk to get the equivalent SIP configuration.  This works for remote offices too because we can port remote numbers across calling areas and eliminate remote office analog lines (this assumes some sort of WAN is in place)

3.) Figure out the IP-Transport mechanism that you feel comfortable with.  I usually recommend a separate connection (in addition to the connection used for Internet traffic) if you have over 5-10 lines (unless you go with the QOS-T1 mentioned below).  This is because most quality issues are a result of your SIP traffic contending with your Internet traffic on that “last mile”.    If your organization is a heavy Internet user, factor in a separate Internet connection.  Going with the QOS-enabled T1 allows you to prioritize the SIP VOIP over the data traffic.  Use these rough numbers for determining IP transport costs:

Basic Internet T1: $300 – $350

Internet T1 with a private connection  to the SIP provider and Quality of Service: $389

Commodity-grade DSL or Cable: $80

Remember, you can accommodate up to 48 SIP trunks on a T1′s worth of bandwidth (32K per call).

4.) Take your current outbound long distance minutes and multiply by .02 per minute for the equivalent SIP costs

5.) Take your current inbound toll free long distance and multiple by .03 per minute for the equivalent SIP costs

6.) Take your current outbound International costs and multiply by .02 per minute for the equivalent SIP costs.  (this assumes most calls are to European countries).

7.) Add it all up and see how much you can save.

NOTE:  These are very rough numbers – and don’t factor things like geographic location, number portability, installation costs, SIP providers, or further discounts associated with volume commitments. You’ll also need to make sure you’re able to convert your services (and you’re not under current contractual obligations).

If you don’t have time to do this, contact me and I”m happy to assist.  Call me at (877) 226-7491 or email at info@access-techweb.com.

Or go to my website at: http://www.access-techweb.com/case_studies.php to see real-world examples of cost savings associated with SIP.

Talk to you later….

SIP Trunks Without an IP PBX

Can this be done? We’re doing it. By using third party equipment, we can terminate SIP trunks and convert back to traditional PRI signaling. This extends the benefits of SIP trunking to those that don’t want to upgrade their PBX yet.

Don’t get me wrong – if your organization needs to upgrade their phone system, but doesn’t have the money, by all means use the 40% – 70% SAVINGS associated with SIP trunks to justify the purchase. We’ll often wrap the phone system acquisition into a lease, convert the customer to SIP trunks, and still save the customer money AFTER the lease payment.

Sorry, back to converting SIP trunks to traditional connections…So far it works great. Depending on the scenario, it’s solved some other issues too. In our testing, we’ve realized that  this SIP conversion  equipment drastically speeds up the fail-over between two Internet connections. That’s because this equipment negotiates between the two Internet connections and reestablishes SIP trunking on the backup should the primary fail. In some cases, we were on a live call when we killed the primary Internet connection and didn’t drop the call! Other times we dropped the call but the SIP trunks were back up within seconds. Ask your traditional PRI provider to do that!

Here’s the other problem it solves (and maybe more important) – SIP providers (ITSPs) and IP PBX manufactures interpret the SIP RFC in different ways – Go figure! Although a SIP provider’s website might say they’re certified with a specific SIP manufacture, doesn’t mean that all features will work. In some cases, exotic PBX features like conference and hunt groups (I’m being sarcastic about the exotic part) didn’t work as advertised (or at all for that matter). This isn’t placing blame on the ITSP or manufacture, it’s merely a fact of technology adaption. Everybody knows they HAVE TO come to the game – but they’re all trying to figure out what the rules are. So in these circumstances, converting SIP trunks back to good old PRIs was appropriate.  Oh, if your manufacture or SIP provider say they’ve been through “extensive certification testing”  with each other- take it with a grain of salt.

There are a lot of solutions that convert SIP to traditional dial tone connections – they’re called Integrated Access Devices (IADs).  We’ve settled on one manufacture that’s working flawlessly.   Get a hold of us and I’ll share the magic sauce with you

So what about converting SIP trunks back to analog POTS lines? We haven’t done it yet. However, we’ve signed a sub-agent who will be delivering a lot of SIP trunks to rural companies with key systems. So we’re testing a few different configurations now. I’ll keep you posted.

If you have questions about any of this, go to our website at www.access-techweb.com. Or pick up the phone and call us at (877) 226-7491. Ask for Travis. I’m more than happy to 1.) share my experiences with you, 2.) sell you SIP trunks (if you are an end-customer), and 3.) sign you up as an agent.

I keep saying it, but I’ll blog more this week:)

SIP – A great disaster recovery solution!

Beyond simply saving large sums of money, SIP is also a great disaster recovery / business continuity solution.

Unlike traditional wire-line technologies like analog and PRI, SIP trunks are dial tone delivered over an IP connection(s).  Because of that, a whole new world of dial tone redundancy is available to the organization.  If your PRI gets severed by the all-mighty back hoe, your options are pretty much limited to waiting for the Local Exchange Carrier (LEC) to restore your service.  In the meantime, you’re sitting without the lifeblood to your business – your telephones!

With SIP, we can deliver dial tone over one connection (T1, fiber optics, etc).  If  that IP connection to the world fails, we can automatically fail over to an alternate IP connection (cable, DSL, etc).   This is all made possible because SIP is merely packets containing voice,  traversing the network.  Like a standard Internet connection, we can re-route those packets over an alternate connection an re-establish communications with the SIP provider.  Since when could we provide 100% dial-tone fail-over?

Often, we recommend our customers use two different connections with different physical mediums (copper vs fiber optics, coax vs copper) to facilitate (1) their primary Internet connection and (2) their primary voice (SIP VOIP) connection.  With the proper network configuration, we can enable these connections to BACK EACH OTHER UP. How’s that for an SLA?

Oh yeah, you can fail SIP across locations too….

Oh yeah, if both IP connections go away, we can automatically fail to copper POTS line…

Oh yeah, you can bring SIP trunks in and do all of this with traditional PBX equipment too….

You should check out my website www.access-techweb.com (it’s loaded with good information that’s easy to read) and call me with questions.  If you are an organization that hasn’t looked into SIP, you should.  If you are a VAR who isn’t incorporating SIP into your solutions, you should.

More to come.  I’ll work on blogging more, sorry.

How does SIP actually save me money?

I get so excited about the technology, how to deploy it, what it looks like in a fail-over scenario, etc.  I often forget to talk about the very reason I was led down this road.  Cost-savings related to SIP is the number one reason why our IP phone system business is flourishing in this economy.  It is also the reason why my SIP sales company – Access Technologies (www.access-techweb.com) is growing rapidly.   Once people can get their head around this concept – the light goes on!  SIP trunks can save a business 40% to 70% on their monthly phone bills!  So without spewing out a brochure to you, I’ll talk to the real-world experiences we’ve come across / implemented:

1.) Reduced facilities costs – This is really the low-hanging fruit of SIP carrier services.  Because SIP trunks are dial tone services routed through a data connection (Internet Protocol) organizations no longer need to purchase T1 circuits, PRIs, or analog (POTS) lines.  These types of “legacy” connections are typically expensive for the local carrier to provide – and those costs get passed on to you in the form of loop costs ($30+ per analog line, $500+ for PRI circuits).  Because SIP is an IP-delivered resource – it can be delivered over a customer’s Internet connection – significantly reducing monthly costs.   We have customers connected to the ITSP (Internet Telephony Service Provider – basically the SIP phone company) through low-cost, high bandwidth connections (cable), T1 Internet, fiber, etc.  Without getting too detailed in this post, we’ve established a “best practices” approach to recommending the type of connection- considering things like Quality of Service, delay, bandwidth, etc, which are all found on our FAQ section of the website.  Furthermore, an organization with multiple smaller offices can “port” their remote office phone numbers to their headquarters and route those calls back to IP phones at the branch.  This allows them to eliminate analog lines and still get local calling rates into those areas (this also addresses 911 calling).

2.) Better utilization of bandwidth:  A traditional PRI can accomodate 23 simultaneous conversations or talk-paths.  With SIP trunks, we can fit upwards of 50 talk-paths on one PRI’s-worth of bandwidth (1.544 MB).  We can also add one SIP trunk at a time, as opposed to having to purchase another PRI when we need more channels.  When SIP trunks are delivered over an Internet connection, that bandwidth can be used for Internet traffic when there is no voice traffic – a much better utilization of your bandwidth.

3.)  Savings with inbound / outbound long distance:  Depending on the type of SIP service you purchase and your long distance usage, this can be a huge cost-savings area.  Because the SIP providers leverage existing IP networks to pass phone traffic, their costs are significantly less.  4 to 6 cents a minute for long distance is considered good with traditional long distance providers.  With SIP trunks, you can enjoy domestic and International rates as low as 1 to 2 cents per minute.  You can also purchase SIP trunks that give you unlimited long distance.  Many of our customers who want to test the waters of SIP without fully committing will keep traditional services (PRI, analog) and “least-cost-route” their long distance over SIP trunks. When they feel confident with SIP, they can then port their numbers and cancel their traditional services.

4.) Market-Expansion Lines (MELS):  MELS have traditionally been used for companies who don’t have a physical presence in remote markets.  For example, a Chicago company wants a presence in Phoenix.  In the past, they might have to purchase a MEL, or a phone number in Phoenix that rings the phone system in Chicago.  The traditional phone company would charge the customer upwards of $40+ for that number as well as all long distance usage.  With SIP, our customers purchase a Phoenix phone number for $1 per month and pay no usage charges.  The reverse is true.  If a company calls into a specific area often, they can purchase a phone number in that area.  When calls are placed, the phone system sends the caller ID of that local area.  The SIP provider sees that caller ID and rates the call as local.  Brilliant!  Doesn’t that make sense?

SIP trunks are the future.  See you later 30-year old, antiquated dial tone technology.

Talk to you soon.

SIPchamp’s First Blog!!!

SIPchamp’s first blog!

Hello, my name is Travis Dillard.   As of the last couple years, I’ve become very involved with SIP – Session Initiation Protocol technology.  My company Inflow Systems, Inc (www.inflowsys.com) provides equipment, software, and implementation services for Unified Communications systems.   Our IP PBX solutions include ShoreTel and Allworx.  My background is in communication technology.  My experience ranges from combat communications in the Air Force to the engineering of networking and communications technology in the civilian world.

I’ve had the pleasure of learning how to sell (or not to sell) technology in the last recession.  I founded my first VAR (Value-Added Reseller) company in the month of April, prior to 9/11.  We implemented Voice-over technology (frame relay, IP ,etc).  At that time, we were heavily involved with a product called Memotec (ever heard of them?) and Avaya’s NEW IP Office.  Since most companies had already upgraded their telephone system technology in the late 90′s, and because there was no real compelling reason (from a cost-savings perspective), selling was brutal!

Fast forwad to two years ago….

Up to this point, selling IP telephony solutions was easy!  Everybody was migrating!  However, in light of the economic down-turn, companies were no longer spending large amounts of capital to reap the reward of “soft benefits” VOIP could offer them.  I quickly realized that I had to find ways to significantly reduce costs for my customers.  A simple 10% reduction in their telecommunications expenses was not going to cut it.  At this point, I had had some exposure to SIP – mostly as a technology that was contained to an organization’s private network.   I had many customers with state-of-the- art IP phone systems, however they were still connected to the outside world with 20+ year-old technology (T1, analog, etc).    I was working with a non-profit organization that HAD to upgrade their failing phone system.  The problem was they had no funding to do so.  I’m usually very conservative in my technology recommendations, but I discussed the possibilities of using SIP to deliver dial tone versus traditional analog lines.  We prepared a solution that kept their main inbound calls on analog lines, but we deployed SIP for all their outbound dialing and Direct Inward Dial (DID) numbers.  In this case, we provisioned SIP over their business cable Internet connection (2MB up and down).  The SIP trunks gave them unlimited long distance and allowed us to port numbers from their remote office (accross calling areas).  The result: a significant reduction in monthly expenses (mostly through long distance and analog line savings).  We placed the new IP phone system under a lease.  Due to the savings associated with SIP, we were able to save them an additional $400+ a month in savings AFTER they paid their phone system lease.  This was a no-brainer for them!  After a few months in operation, we eliminated more analog lines (converting their inbound calls to SIP) and saved them more money!

So the light went on.  I could save my customers a tremendous amount of money while giving them the benefits of new IP telephone system technology.  Since then, all my equipment sales are bundled with some form of SIP trunking.  This has led to a dramatic growth in our revenues and many happy customers.  At this point, I researched as much as I could about SIP.  I’ve learned best practices, how to set appropriate expectations, and what is a practical deployment of SIP (versus what you can read in a sales brochure).  Since then, I’ve founded Access Technologies, LLC.  www.access-techweb.com.  Access Technologies is a master agent for SIP dial tone services.  We support agents (mostly VARs) in the sales and implementation of SIP.   Although we can also provide other technologies (Internet, POTS, MPLS, etc) our primary focus is on SIP.  Go to our website, you’ll see a practical description of SIP, real-world case studies, how SIP really can save money, and a fantastic FAQ section.  We also provide back-office support to assist our agents in quoting, order-tracking, etc.

So SIP excites me!  I feel very strongly that this is truely the future of carrier services.  Not only does SIP save money, it is a fantastic answer to disaster recovery, mobile workers, and many other pressing business objectives found in today’s organizations.   This blog is dedicated to discussing everything about SIP (the good and the bad), real-world experiences, etc.  I’m looking forward to it!

Please feel free to comment, make suggestions, ask questions, etc.  And I’ll be blogging to you very soon!