Unified Communications in the Cloud: SIP-Trunking 101

Grazed from CloudCow.  Author: Hoofer.

The cloud isn’t just a medium for hosted computer applications – it’s also a medium for complex telephony applications.  In fact, many companies are now integrating their old-style PBX systems with front-end software that allows older VoIP PBX gear to leverage the Internet for outside unified communications activity, such as phone calls, video calls, multiparty conferences, IM, media streaming, etc.  The software that makes all of this possible is referred to as SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) software.

A PBX with SIP is able to connect to the public telephone network (a.k.a. PSTN), via a SIP trunk provider who effectively acts as a gateway from the Internet to the PSTN.  Hence, VoIP traffic, which is Internet-based, is seemlessly translated, or "trunked" onto the PSTN via the SIP-trunking provider, and vice-versa; yet, all other communication activity is handled by the native Internet…

Sounds complicated, right?  Well that’s because it is!  But thankfully there a number of telephony providers who are able to mask all the complexities and offer a robust, enterprise-tier SIP-trunking service that even the most simple-minded of us could feel good about.

I learned recently of one such service from a company named Allstream.  The SIP Trunking from Allstream is an enterprise-level service that not only provides the aforementioned gateway and switching capabilities, but it is also able to save companies quite abit on their unified communications bottom-line.

If you’re considering deploying a unified communications solution to leverage the cloud, Visit Allstream today for a quick video and a listing of the use-cases that may be appropriate for your environment.