The SIP trunking market has cemented a strong presence, having reached US$13.44 billion in total value in 2019, as reported by Yahoo! Finance. Furthermore, the market’s value is expected to mushroom to US$30.22 billion by 2027 – but, all the same, you might be none the wiser as to what SIP trunking actually is.
This would be understandable, as the term “SIP trunking” itself might look dauntingly technical at first. The “SIP” part stands for Session Initiation Protocol, and refers to a telephony protocol that enables calls – including voice and video calls – to be made over the internet. So, when should you consider SIP trunking?
If you would like to scale up your business operations
As “SIP trunks” are essentially just virtual phone lines, you could say that SIP trunking is the process of connecting these lines. These SIP trunks can be connected to your business site so that your workforce can use them to both send and receive calls. Fortunately, these lines’ functionality is easy to unlock.
Business News Daily points out that there’s no limit to the number of channels a single SIP trunk can hold. As each of these channels would be the equivalent of one incoming or outgoing call, your business would only need to rely on one trunk, no matter how many calls the business needs to make or take at any one time.
When preparing a disaster recovery plan
Of course, 2020 has shown how disaster can strike businesses somewhat unexpectedly, potentially leaving them scrambling to find alternatives to their usual tried-and-tested ways of working. However, a pandemic is hardly the only example of a crisis that could threaten your company’s usual day-to-day routine.
For example, what if the phone lines your business usually relies on suddenly went down? In that case, SIP trunking could be used for backup purposes. If one SIP trunk your business was using falters, take heart; Startups.co.uk notes that calls could simply be rerouted to another SIP trunk from the same provider.
If your business is looking to make financial savings
Of course, you are likely looking for cost-cutting opportunities as a matter of habit – and calls your company’s workforce makes could soon become noticeably cheaper once more of those calls are being made through a SIP trunk. This is because the calls will be carried over the internet.
Consequently, your staffers can avoid extortionate costs often associated with long-distance and international calls – as each call will be sent the SIP trunk provider’s termination point and then transferred to a local PSTN (public switched telephone call). The call will thus be charged as a local one.
If you wanted to start implementing a unified communications (UC) system
A SIP trunk connection would enable you to put together a UC system that lets you combine various communication functions, including voice and video calling and messaging, into one system. Gamma is one telecoms provider offering unified communications systems as well as SIP trunks compatible with them, allowing you to start assembling the building blocks you need.
