Member Article

ISDN: Ten years left

Author: Neil Armstrong, Director of Business Services

Recently, BT announced it had a target date of 2025 to complete the phase out of ISDN and PSTN services – all of which will now migrate over to IP within the next decade. It might seem a long way off – but with millions of customers to migrate and little further investment in the existing ISDN lines likely to take place, switching to more sophisticated SIP technology should be a priority for businesses.

It might sound like a job for the “telecoms department” – but is that job role dwindling? In fact, a survey Timico commissioned last year found that 52% of IT managers now also have responsibility for telecoms. In spite of this, the same survey revealed that a shocking 67% of IT managers don’t know what SIP is, despite its status as the next big shift in telecoms.

So what is SIP technology? SIP trunking is a powerful, scalable and highly flexible solution that helps businesses to streamline their communication costs and resources. Its key feature is the removal of the physical aspect of the phone lines – reducing the restrictions around call capacity and location. The fact that it delivers “virtual” phone lines rather than physical wires which are carried over your data circuit, means SIP is highly scalable and calls are typically up to 40% cheaper than traditional ISDN lines.

But it’s not just the cost savings that make SIP such an attractive proposition – it also offers a level of flexibility that traditional ISDN simply can’t compete with. As workforces continue to gravitate towards more flexible working patterns, the demand for office solutions on the move is only going to increase over the next 10 years.

SIP enables employees who are working remotely to have calls made to their desk phone automatically delivered to their smartphone or PC, without incurring any forwarding charges. The same is true if a line is busy, or if your office is hit with an unforeseen event - like a local network failure, severe weather or fire damage. SIP trunking minimises these problems, allowing a business to keep working through every eventuality.

And let’s not underestimate the importance of that. The same 2014 Timico survey found that for 63% of respondents, it would take less than two hours of being unable to make or receive calls before their business suffered reputational or financial damage.

Of course, not everyone is a fan of change – and ISDN has undoubtedly been a robust and reliable technology. However, bear in mind that during this phase out of ISDN, BT’s investment in the technology will also diminish – making it less reliable over time.

So with the switch to SIP inevitable, what should you consider before making the move? Well, as with most things in life – it’s all about selecting the right partner. Do your research and try to find a provider which has its network, data centre and connectivity all under one roof.

It’s only when something goes wrong and customers realise that they have account management with one company, connectivity with another and a data centre on the other side of the country that things become a real headache. Before committing to a contract, make sure you know where every aspect of your solution is being housed - and try to pick one that has an end-to-end service.

Timico’s step by step guide to switching to SIP:

• Size your IP connection: This will depend on how many callers you want to be connected at any one time – Timico has a wide range of options available which enable easy scalability to develop as and when you do
• Get set up: Setting up phones at your premises or for your homeworkers can be easily achieved by connecting a SIP Trunk to your IP PBX or SIP gateway
• Boost resilience: Disaster recovery provision can easily be set up in advance so that SIP calls can be immediately redirected without service disruption
• Plan to port your numbers: Timico has porting agreements with all of the main carriers – just send your phone number to us and we can check
• Test your set-up: Make sure your local network is ready to support SIP before porting and numbers going live
• Secure your systems: Check firewalls, systems and user account passwords to minimise potential risks that could compromise your security

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Timico .