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As you evaluate your current phone system solution and explore potential new options, you will soon come across — if you have not already — two telecommunication technology types: SIP and PRI.
PRI stands for Primary Rate Interface and has been around since the 1980s. It typically uses a high-capacity T1 trunk line to establish a connection between the telephone company and a business’s on-site Private Branch Exchange (PBX). Once this link is in place, a business can simultaneously access up to 23 voice channels and 1 data/control channel.
SIP stands for Session Initiation Protocol. Unlike PRI which is strictly a telephone technology, SPI is an innovative network technology that is completely virtual, and it was created as a way to establish real-time multimedia sessions, such as VoIP calls, between participants.
In recent years, a growing number of businesses have migrated from PRI to SIP, and thousands of new businesses have opted to start their operations from day one with a SIP-based telecommunications infrastructure instead of PRI. Here are some of the key factors behind their decision:
Each PRI circuit is physical and therefore requires hardware and software, both of which are costly to purchase and maintain. In addition, long-distance minutes incur extra charges.
SIP trunks are virtual, and as such the only requirement is a reliable and fast Internet connection with suitable bandwidth. This is no system-based hardware or software to purchase, or additional fees for long distance calls. Generally, the cost savings compared to PRI are 30-50% annually.
Each PRI network provides a maximum of 23 voice channels (a business can technically have 100s of lines, but only 23 voice channels may be in use at any one time). Scaling up requires purchasing and installing new circuits and additional hardware, which is very expensive. What’s more, businesses are obliged to increase capacity by 23 voice channels even if they require fewer.
With SIP, scaling is quick, easy and very cost effective, and the system can expand or contract from 5 end users to over 5000. There are no circuits or software to purchase, configure and maintain.
With PRI, additional capacity must be planned several months in advance, since new circuits and termination hardware must be ordered, installed and configured.
With SIP, adding capacity is rapid and requires virtually no lead time. What’s more, service providers typically offer “burst” capabilities to support additional capacity during periods of higher-than-average system utilization.
In the event of emergency or local power outage, routing calls to other locations is complex and costly. What’s more, trying to establish redundancy/diversity across service providers is cost prohibitive for all but large enterprises (and even then, it is not necessarily a good expenditure).
With SIP, calls can be easily re-routed to other locations and/or mobile devices. In addition, it is simple and cost-effective to leverage diversity across service providers and achieve a 99.99% uptime standard.
PRI remains prevalent on the telecommunications landscape, but largely because it is a legacy technology that has been around for 30+ years (in fact, the copper era technology it relies on dates back to the 1800s!).
Clearly, SIP represents the present and the future of business telecommunications, because it delivers more for less — which in today’s hyper-competitive business world is critical for short-term success, and long-term growth.
To learn more about reaping the clear and measurable advantages of SIP technology in your business, contact the Votacall team today. Your consultation with us is free.
Also, be sure to download our FREE eBook on how to choose the right partner for your hosted VoIP phone system:
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