Earlier this week both at home and at the office we did a series of “But Wait! There’s More!” jokes. And today as I considered a subject for my blog I ran across a blog by Dan Jacobson using the phrase. His blog was of interest to me not because he used that famous infomercial phrase but because he was discussing a white paper issued by Ovum earlier this year about the second wave of SIP Trunking. Given my attempts to defend the mighty SIP Trunk and position it as a tactical decision in migrating to Unified Communications (UC), finding this white paper was timely.

Ovum took the position that SIP Trunks had a greater value proposition than the obvious  cost savings they provide over PRIs and services offered over TDM facilities. Now some of the things included in their list of “second wave” capabilities have been products from Broadvox since we launched our SIP Trunking business products. We consider the following as “first wave” features:

• Dynamic load balancing to support multiple contact centers, support organizations or corporate communications entry points
• Business continuity with multiple SIP Trunks with failover or automatic call forwarding to mobile phones or alternative DIDs if the IP PBX, IAD, or media gateway cannot be reached.

However, Ovum knocks the ball out the park with the rest of their observations.

• Consolidating data centers or major infrastructure locations
• Audio conferencing savings especially for multi-national companies
• Consolidating email services and  email servers
•  Platform/protocol for the integration and addition of UC services (e.g. IM, presence, video, conferencing, FMC)

 

Ovum’s SIP Trunking: The Second Wave Benefits is one of many articles presenting new value propositions for enterprises to migrate to SIP Trunks.

 

Finally, I also enjoyed SIP Trunks and UC: Take Another Look by Lisa Pierce. In addition to promoting Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) and hosted offerings in general she reminded me of a point I often forget to make when discussing SIP Trunking benefits. SIP Trunks are a secure, enterprise alternative to MPLS and can perform session control for all real time applications.

As I said earlier this week, transitioning to SIP Trunking is a tactical decision in support of a strategic goal. And there’s nothing wrong with that!

See you on Monday with another original recipe and a Top 10 list!