Peer-to-Peer Blog: SIP The Gateway to UC

By Cary Bush, Sales Director for Voice Services, Logista

For a number of years I have been promoting  evangelizing  the benefits of SIP trunking.  My first thoughts were economic; the notion of centralizing and consolidating voice trunking services in a multisite and geographically dispersed environment seemed too good to be true, but the reality at the time was that this was a potential “game changer” with regard to cost savings. In 2010 we not only see the maturation of the SIP deliverable (including adoption of every major carrier and IP communications platform manufacturer), but the simple truth that cost savings is nearly eclipsed by the peripheral benefits of voice network visibility, ease of management and disaster recovery/business continuity solutions. What started as a great cost-savings sale has developed into a gateway to unified communications.

We have worked both with niche SIP providers as well as traditional carriers. To be honest, the niche providers seem to be more advanced both in the SIP deliverable, as well as the value message. Though, some of the major” carriers are clearly on board and have a solution that can be deployed, the message has not necessarily seeped down to the rank and file of carrier direct account managers and solution engineers. (We have had discussions with customers that have brought the subject up with their preferred ILEC and were told the services were not yet available in their area even though we have been working on similar initiatives in the same geographic area.)  Some niche” managed service providers that have adopted SIP as a significant driver or, in some cases, their sole purpose for existence, have clearly positioned the notion as the communications medium of the future.

Basically all of the major equipment/software manufacturers have thrown their hats into the SIP ring.  Cisco, Avaya (and former Nortel), Mitel, Siemens and now Microsoft, fully understand that this technology development is a motivator for them to sell more robust solutions. Actually, employing SIP trunking with a customer premises-based solution is the most cost-effective solution to move to a more redundant and reliable communications network.  (What is to be determined is the effect that cloud-based solutions also will have on the traditional solution manufacturers considering the shrinking head count among enterprise IT staff and the increased duties that those remaining incur.)  Also, you must take into account the open source CPE solutions that have grown so much due to the SIP standards (i.e. Asterisk).

In the end, the SIP notion is one that delivers too much value to ignore. It is the gateway to unified messaging, conferencing/collaboration and integration to legacy communications systems through industry standard gateways. I actually welcome this transition; it is the most compelling reason to adopt new technology and processes that I have seen in a long time. As a VAR/Interconnect representative, the concept of consolidation that we have consistently presented to our customers over the years is that much more empowered by the notion of SIP. Voice PRIs and LD T1s are soon becoming relics of the past. We previously sold PBX solutions on the value of a self-contained and lower-cost communications platform (through least cost routing and self reliance/support), but now we can advocate a similar solution that opens the doors to collaboration tools that are uninhibited by proprietary technologies.

Cary Bush is sales director for voice services at Logista, an enterprise VAR focusing on Cisco and Avaya UC technologies that is growing its consultative services to include voice/data WAN solutions through partner provided/channel alliances. Bush leads the companys voice services business development efforts in the southeastern United States as well as the development of a professional services practice for both legacy and converged voice/data platform support and implementation. Previously, his experience has been in operations and account management with Lucent and Black Box Network Services. Bush is a graduate of Trevecca Nazarene University. He also is a member of the

2009-10 PHONE+/Channel Partners Conference & Expo Advisory Board.