1. How many endpoints will need to be supported?
2. What type of traffic will the broadband connection support?
3. How many IP Addresses are required?
4. What is the budget for broadband?
5. Can additional savings be achieved through the use of either convergence or SIP?
6. What is the Service Level Agreement or SLA?
7. How is the service provisioned?
   
   

As the services offered over SIP Trunks and IP Based networks grow, BYOB becomes increasingly difficult to support. Interestingly, it is not because of specific quality issues but because it is more difficult to diagnose. Prior to Broadvox offering a hosted Unified Communications solution, our engineers basically addressed interoperability issues. After the acquisition of Cypress Communications, I discovered the requirement to include phones, routers, broadband, applications servers, and more as part of the trouble shooting process. The ability to eliminate the broadband as a source of a problem is big when hosting an application as complex and important as UC. Therefore, we offer a fully managed solution which permits QoS from the handset to the cloud. However, our VARs and members of our partner program also want to be able to sell a partially managed UC solution where the phones, routers and broadband are provided by third parties. We are unique in offering a choice of fully managed and partially managed UC. And as this series on broadband emphasizes, getting the right solution to fit a business need is not to be taken lightly. The IP community needs service and application providers that offer choice and avoid one size fits all products. However, when an application is considered business critical, it should use dedicated broadband. UC is becoming such an application. Therefore, VARs must emphasize the importance of shifting from BYOB to dedicated broadband.