The CF List: 20 SIP Trunking Solution Providers You Should Know
The role of SIP trunking is changing to one of pure connectivity.
![Twenty, 20, SD-WAN providers Twenty, 20, SD-WAN providers](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt1623fbe456f4d7d3/6523f96f6868b42e553c7c45/shutterstock_790434142.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Jörge röse-oberreich/Shutterstock
451 Research’s Raul Castanon said IntelePeer benefits from its trajectory and telco background to provide a strong focus on voice connectivity with a comprehensive suite of APIs to manage services such as purchasing phone numbers, provisioning SIP trunks, configuring advanced voice scripts, conference calling and SIP registrations.
Frost and Sullivan’s Michael Brandenburg said IntelePeer is “always interesting.”
Telarus’ Mike Baillargeon, Avant’s Erin Christianson and Brandenburg said Lumen Technologies is a noteworthy provider. Recently, Lumen once again claimed the top spot on Omdia’s SIP Trunking Service Provider Scorecard for North America. Lumen, formerly CenturyLink, has maintained the top spot for six years now.
Baillargeon and Brandenburg cite AT&T as a noteworthy player. A new AT&T Cloud Voice integration with Operator Connect for the Microsoft Teams platform gives businesses the ability to enable and deploy carrier-grade voice service in a Teams environment. The enhanced technology combination gives business an easy way to harmonize existing SIP trunking and cloud communication solutions.
Baillargeon, Brandenburg and Christianson cite Verizon among noteworthy players.
“They are dominant, they have market share, and they’ve always been aggressive about converting their customers and getting them on the latest,” Brandenburg said. “And they’re also right in there with Microsoft.”
Baillargeon cites AireSpring as a noteworthy contender. It offers a full suite of advanced communications features, including DIDs, Toll-Free, e911, international calling, directory listing and number porting. In addition, support for Microsoft Teams Direct Routing enables Teams users to make phone calls via AireSpring SIP trunks.
Baillargeon cites Net2Phone among noteworthy players.
“We believe the pandemic called the bluff on any business that resisted change to their telecom strategy,” he said. “By moving a workforce to a home base, those businesses that held on to traditional trunking now were being asked to cut facility costs based on no one in the office, but still provide full network access to the remote teams. The path of least resistance to save costs while not disrupting traditional external communications was to convert their POTS/PRI to the more flexible and cost-effective SIP trunks. This retired many legacy contracts with more flexible sizing and costs associated with moving to a SIP model.”
Castanon said Bandwidth is another vendor that comes with a background in telecommunications.
“Its acquisition of Voxbone repositioned it as a global provider,” he said. “The combined company has a strong reputation for reliability and quality, in addition to features that include flexible provisioning and a self-service portal.”
Brandenburg also cited Bandwidth’s acquisition of Voxbone.
“Bandwidth was a North American carrier and Voxbone gave them international phone number reach,” he said. “They went from two or three countries to 60 with that acquisition.”
Brandenburg cited Microsoft, saying the fact that it realized its own plans weren’t going to work for everyone and opened its solutions to support SIP trunking providers is “pretty huge.”
Skype for Business enables connectivity to the PSTN directly over SIP to provide flexible UC capability. Certified for Skype for Business SIP trunking services help enterprises to connect their on-premises Skype for Business infrastructure to the external PSTN network.
Castanon cited Brightlink as a noteworthy provider. It revamped and relaunched its communications platform two years ago, introducing innovations such as its SIP API Manager. That allows activation, management and configuration of SIP trunks, including the ability to add virtual communication channels, point-and-click SIP trunks to any endpoint, and calibrate usage according to traffic flow, geography and size.
Brandenburg said Sippio is an interesting competitor.
“I’ve been talking to Sippio a lot lately,” he said. “They’re doing a full automated direct routing and Zoom Phone integrations solution. For me, the companies that talk about being a software carrier, being a software network provider or a software-focused carrier, are gaining the agility edge there.”
Baillargeon cites BCN Telecom as a noteworthy player. BCN recently expanded its cloud voice portfolio to include Cox Voice Service from Cox Business. This voice service offers customers a POTS replacement option for standard voice, fax, credit, alarm, fire and elevator lines. The BCN cloud voice portfolio also includes hosted voice, SIP trunks and other POTS replacement options.
Castanon named Twilio among strong SIP trunking providers. Twilio differentiates itself as an API provider, enabling the ability to provision and manage SIP trunks in just a few minutes via its Elastic SIP Trunking product, as well as through its analytics capabilities, Voice Insights for Elastic SIP Trunking and Interface.
“Twilio remains a gold standard for CPaaS that differentiates from other players with a comprehensive portfolio that includes a wide range of communications APIs that include elastic SIP trunking,” he said.
Brandenburg also ID’d Twilio, saying, “I see them as a potential threat to the stalwarts.” He also said more enterprises will be looking to migrate their SIP trunking service to Twilio.
Baillargeon says BullsEye Telecom is a noteworthy provider.
“There are many really good SIP trunk providers based on geography, price, security, flexibility, etc.,” he said. “Our customers are more global than ever and expect the same quality and service whether it’s London, California; London, Ontario; or London, United Kingdom. They appreciate a single provider who can deliver a secure global network plus added solutions like SD-WAN and managed security services. More value-added services from a single provider leads to a long-term, effective relationship.”
Baillargeon and Christianson cite Nextiva among noteworthy players. Nextiva PBX SIP supports any PBX system with HD quality on an organization’s current phone system. The PBX SIP Support Center walks organizations through the process of checking their system’s compatibility, porting their existing phone number, adjusting their account settings and more.
Baillargeon calls BCM One a noteworthy providers. It has bolstered its international services footprint and portfolio through its acquisition of Wholesale Carrier Services (WCS), which owns and operates an IP-enabled voice and data network that touches more than 500 cities.
BCM One has acquired six companies over the last two-and-a-half years. That includes SIP trunking providers SIPTrunk/SIP.US and nexVortex, and most recently white-label UCaaS provider SkySwitch.
Baillargeon cites Fusion Connect as a noteworthy player. The company emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in early 2020 and its management team has renewed its focus on connectivity solutions that include its SIP trunking. The company sells to businesses of all sizes, but its sweet spot is the medium to large enterprise, especially businesses with multiple locations.
Castanon said 8×8 is a key player, with a global network of tier 1 carriers that enable it to provide full PSTN replacement, emergency services and short codes in more than 40 countries, in addition to a strong reputation when it comes to quality of service.
Brandenburg said he’s unsure whether many people know NuWave Communications, but they’re worth noting as a launch partner for Microsoft’s Operator Connect.
“They were down the path of a highly automated direct routing solution for their own customers and they’re also reaching out to other carriers,” he said. “So they had all the infrastructure and automation when Microsoft came calling.”
Baillargeon dubs Peerless Network a significant SIP trunking provider.
“Peerless Networks’ in-process acquisition of Call One allows them to access a wider range of UCaaS, call recording and network services from a traditional carrier to supplement their strong voice network core competency,” he said.
Castanon said Vonage is a prominent SIP trunking provider.
“Vonage SIP trunking provides global coverage with access to over 1,600 telecommunication networks, in addition to flexibility and scalability, and programmability features with easy-to-use developer tools,” he said.
Castanon said Vonage is a prominent SIP trunking provider.
“Vonage SIP trunking provides global coverage with access to over 1,600 telecommunication networks, in addition to flexibility and scalability, and programmability features with easy-to-use developer tools,” he said.
The SIP trunking solution market continues to grow rapidly. Providers proved invaluable to organizations as they moved to remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Companies continue to migrate from legacy PBX and telco services. Moreover, SIP trunking is typically less expensive than legacy circuits.
Our latest CF List focuses on SIP trunking. This is the second annual list focusing on this technology and industry. Analysts with S&P Global Market Intelligence and Frost & Sullivan, and executives with Telarus and Avant, weighed in on SIP trunking market trends and what it takes to be a successful provider.
The global SIP trunking solution market exceeded $14.4 billion in 2020 and should surpass $31.2 billion by 2028, according to Strategic Market Insights. Look for an 11.8% compound annual growth rate through 2028.
Accelerating Trends
451 Research’s Raul Castanon
Raul Castanon is senior research analyst with 451 Research, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence.
“The pandemic accelerated several IT and communications technology trends,” he said. “At a high level, features and capabilities focused on providing ease of use have proven their value, enabling IT organizations to quickly and easily provision services, regardless of their or their employees’ location. Specifically when it comes to SIP trunking, a key innovation is direct programmatic access via APIs. These capabilities are redefining the landscape, positioning CPaaS vendors as emerging competitors.”
Mike Baillargeon is Telarus’ UC/CC solution architect for the East.
Telarus’ Mike Baillargeon
“During the last 18 months, the focus has been on how to securely move a workforce to a home office while providing the same experience as in the office,” he said. “This leads to customers expecting a better experience from a billing, service delivery and uptime point of view. Based on this pressure, providers have placed a renewed emphasis on customer experience (CX). We believe providers are seeing a unique window in moving a large number of customers to a modern connectivity model, but in order to retain these clients, suppliers have added staff in the areas of customer success and account management.”
SIP Trunking Proved Its Value
Michael Brandenburg is senior industry analyst of connected work at Frost & Sullivan.
Frost and Sullivan’s Michael Brandenburg
“During the pandemic, SIP trunking kind of proved its value because it allowed the quick shifts that needed to happen for remote work,” he said. “One of the providers told me they had customers just double their capacity for their SIP trunking services. They needed one trunk going in and one going back out. These are not really new capabilities; it’s just that customers never really thought they’d have to use SIP trunking in that way. It was always treated very statically and the dynamic value of SIP came through.”
There’s a general trend of moving to cloud and UCaaS, Brandenburg said. Therefore, the role of SIP trunking is changing to one of pure connectivity.
“So it’s not just a cheaper way to transport your voice lines into your on-premises,” he said. “It’s not only the connectivity back to the corporate office solution or to the contact center. It’s a way to unify all of a company’s telephone numbers and direct them wherever they need to go, whether that’s to a legacy on-premises solution, a cloud contact center, or Microsoft Teams or Zoom Phone, or even in some cases RingCentral.”
SIP Trunking Takes Back Seat to UCaaS, CCaaS
Erin Christianson is executive vice president of strategic partners at Avant.
Avant’s Erin Christianson
“I feel that SIP trunking has taken a back seat compared to UCaaS and CCaaS during the pandemic,” he said. “However, I do believe that customers’ expectations and requirements are changing. Customers are aptly exploring ways to connect into existing on-premises phone systems and asking how they can leverage SIP or direct routing into collaboration platforms like Microsoft or Cisco. With this, I feel that as hybrid environments continue to be the norm, customers will need to understand what’s available and effectively integrate with a myriad of voice platforms.”
Vendors/suppliers are building flexible SIP solutions that can integrate into multiple collaboration environments, Christianson said.
“Today’s enterprise customers are not built on one system as they were in the past,” he said. “Enterprise customers leverage various collaboration platforms. Customers are in search of solutions that can seamlessly make an impact to the bottom line, ones that are built for successful integration, use and ease of adoption among the business units.”
We’ve compiled a list, in no particular order, of 20 top SIP trunking providers. It’s based on feedback and recent news reports. The list includes a mix of well-known providers as well as lesser-known ones making strides in SIP trunking This is by no means a complete list.
Scroll through our slideshow above to see who made our latest list of SIP trunking providers.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Edward Gately or connect with him on LinkedIn. |
Read more about:
AgentsAbout the Author(s)
You May Also Like