May 12, 2009 on 4:26 pm | In Voice Over IP |
Be careful when choosing a VoIP provider. Be sure to do your research. Figure out what type of trunk you want. There are many different VoIP solutions to choose from. I would recommend having a VoIP professional come to your office and give you a rate comparison. He should take your current telecom solution and compared it to a few different VoIP solutions related to the proper trunk provider.
PRI is definitely the most reliable, but not always the cheapest.
In larger organizations a combination of these two services could be used to reduce costs. For example, if you are a business with 99 employees and only need 33 telephone lines. If you went with a PRI only solution, you would have to buy two full PRIs (46 lines). PRIs only come in 23 line increments. That would be a waste of money spent on an unnecessary 12 additional phone lines. Instead of purchasing the extra PRI, purchase a SIP trunk and buy 12 lines if you need 12 and add more as your business grows on the fly.
PRI
Short for Primary Rate Interface a type of ISDN service designed for larger organizations. PRI includes 23 B-channels and one D-Channel.
Recommended PRI Providers are:
Logix Communications – Offers Data & Voice
Cbeyond – Offers Data, Voice and Mobile communications
SIP
SIP stands for Session Initiation Protocol and is the de-facto signaling standard for real time communications including Voice-over-IP (VoIP). SIP is an open standard which allows the carrier voice network to interoperate seamlessly with customer premise equipment. The logical voice channel established between them is a SIP Trunk.
Two recommended SIP Providers are:
Teliax – If you have 800 numbers that you must keep. Teliax will port the number and has the cost effective rates.
VoicePulse – If you do not have 800 numbers, VoicePulse is the way to go.