SIP Trunking: What Is Holding It Back?SIP Trunking: What Is Holding It Back?

VoiceCon ProgramRisk aversion, long-term contracts, features/functions and interoperability are just some of the factors keeping more users from adopting SIP Trunks.

VoiceCon Program This last few months, I've had the fortunate opportunity to spend some time talking with our service provider partners and a number of enterprises about their plans to adopt SIP Trunking. One of the questions I always ask is, "What do you think is holding back SIP Trunking from wider adoption?" As you can imagine, I heard all kinds of interesting feedback and thought it was time to share it with you.What is holding back SIP Trunking from wider adoption?

The Economy--One would think that with an opportunity to reduce operating expenses immediately, businesses would be looking very closely at the cost savings available through SIP Trunking. And this does seem to be happening, but there is something else at work. It seems that in tight economies, employees are far less willing to "go out on a limb" and try new technologies, even if they could save the company significant money. Why? The fear of having to find a new job during high unemployment is a significant deterrent for most people that makes them think twice before taking significant risks at work.

Existing Long-Term Contracts--Many of the incumbent carriers have their major customers on three, five or even ten year contracts that are very expensive to break. An pricey termination clause can easily wipe out any near-term savings that could be gained from moving to SIP Trunking.

Features--The features available to SIP Trunking services vary greatly and without careful examination, important functions like fax, network call transfers, or even basic DTMF functions are often overlooked. I've personally talked to an IT manager of a company that cut over to a SIP Trunking service that didn't support fax and he didn't discover the situation until his Accounts Payable called to complain about their fax machine not working reliably. You can imagine what his day was like. Other devices like alarm panels, postal meters, and HVAC systems often get overlooked.

Interoperability--SIP Trunking as a service is still working to overcome some interoperability issues--mostly due to the continued evolution of both the services and the applications that use those services. Believe it or not, developers and engineers are not done yet. Larger, more complex enterprises virtually always have a mix of old and new from multiple vendors, and connecting all these systems to one SIP Trunking service has some challenges. SIP Connect came up with a reasonable first 1.0 recommendation, but it was missing many important, commonly used features including fax and security, which currently has its members working hard to close the gap with a 2.0 specification that is currently in the works.

Survivability--The issue is very real as noted by Matt Brunk's post about his experience with an outage at his ITSP. Depending on the business, an outage of all voice communications similar to Matt's could be catastrophic. However, this issue can be solved with a diversified approach that retains some legacy TDM circuits to handle limited traffic "just in case".

Legacy Carriers Can And Will Price Match--With their long since paid-for Class 5 switches and plant, legacy TDM carriers have a lot of price flexibility to keep their customers. Much like the change that occurred in the long distance market with the advent of VoIP calling cards and carriers, the legacy carriers will fight back with aggressive pricing.

Risk/Reward Factor--Like many big decisions, there is a risk vs. reward analysis at the enterprise buyer. Will moving to SIP Trunking save money? Will it put my business at additional risk? Are the savings worth the risk? Will I be a corporate hero or have to stand in line for an unemployment check?

Myself and a number of other industry representatives will be addressing these issues and solutions in the VoiceCon panel discussion, "SIP Trunking--Who's Offering What" moderated by Lisa Pierce, President, Strategic Networks Group. That session is from 9:00 AM to 10:45 AM on Monday in Sun A.

We'll also be addressing SIP Trunking for Enterprises, and Risk Management in an AudioCodes and BroadVox-hosted coffee break and round-table on Monday from 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM in the Emerald 2 Conference room. See: http://www.audiocodes.com/events/audiocodes-connect for more information on this and other activities we have planned.VoiceCon ProgramRisk aversion, long-term contracts, features/functions and interoperability are just some of the factors keeping more users from adopting SIP Trunks.