The Node4 Whitepaper SIP Perspective and Equality is now available. Download your copy, now.

If you look around, you can see that people are communicating all the time. It's amazing if you think about it. Only a few years ago, your communication options were very limited. But, not anymore. We're mobile, and the people we want to talk to are just a click away.

The great thing is that trends in how we communicate translate to the workplace. Nowadays, in order to meet our various customers’ requirements, we need to be able to communicate as freely and easily as possible. So, as a result, businesses are looking for flexible methods of communication.

And the market has responded.

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) has become the go-to solution.

In fact, according to matttownend.wordpress.com the SIP trunking market has seen growth, "especially in the Large Enterprise segment with the midmarket also growing faster then expected. By the end of December, the UK SIP Trunking market had grown by 232,070 Trunks (13.73%) since June 2015". This seems to be accelerating as businesses are looking to further reduce communications costs.

It's fascinating that something that started out as a communications protocol for signalling and controlling media streams aimed at group video sessions for conferencing back in the 1990s, is now repurposed and used as the gateway between traditional PBX services and VoIP services.

SIP is growing in the market place, and will continue to do so. So, let's take a look at the 3 key benefits that SIP can bring to your business.

1. Cost Saving.

A national estate agent business gradually removed all of their ISDN circuits from around 50 offices across the UK as the contracts came up for renewal. They utilised their MPLS network for voice data and replaced some of the older PSTN hardware with SIP over the course of 2016. They estimated that the cost saving of ISDN alone was around £30k per annum*.

One of the key benefits in deploying SIP trunks technology is reducing communications costs by eliminating the need to purchase ISDN, BRIs,PRIs or local PSTN gateways.

2. Flexibility and Scalability of Growth.

Adding a single endpoint or user to traditional telecoms systems is fraught by time delays and usually more expense, with the provision of engineering time and hardware requirements for expansion of the system. SIP technology gives businesses the flexibility of quickly scaling communications to accommodate call capacity.

Flexibility is also true for call number allocation; allowing geographic numbering irrespective of physical location as well as non-geographic numbers and international inbound numbering. This can provide any business with the flexibility of specialist telephone numbers irrespective of office location.

3. Supercharged Unified Communications.

This is where SIP technology comes into its own. SIP technology provides a gateway to creating an IP-based Unified Communications system that brings together a whole host of communication platforms, including: voice, data, Instant Messaging, and a whole lot more.

Clearly SIP, as the core fabric across the enterprise for Unifed Communication, has a very strategic role to play in business. Moreover, SIP technology is making a massive impact on the productivity of a workforce.

We have covered the 3 key benefits of SIP technology. The rest, as they say, is up to you. Now is the time for you to start considering the future of your business and investing in the right kind of communication strategy that will benefit your business in the long run.

To gain more insight into SIP technology, download our whitepaper SIP: Perspective & Equality now.

Bonus Content

As you've seen above, SIP as a technology is the core foundation to providing, not only VoIP telephony calls, but the plethora of communication methods on the rise as part of a Unified Communication evolution! It is important that the foundation for this technology is sound and secure.

With the marketplace bursting with different SIP providers, choosing the right provider can be very tricky. So, we've put together a list of prime requisites for SIP provision that will enable you to get the best possible solution.

• Use a SIP provider that has total control over all the aspects of the hosting network.
• Choose a SIP provider that understand VoIP protocols and has configured their network specifically around VoIP traffic and can provide QoS as part of the service delivery.
• Select a SIP provider that has a commercial relationship with reliable, established upstream carriers to allow for complete interoperability with the world.
• Use a SIP provider that offers scalable and secure bandwidth of the network, ideally MPLS connectivity.

Choose a SIP provider who has a proven track record in VoIP and SIP services.

Please contact Node4 for any questions about SIP , VoIP or Unified Communications services, HERE.

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The Node4 Whitepaper SIP Perspective and Equality is now available. Download your copy, now.

*From our SIP whitepaper Perspective and Equality.