The ABCs of SIP Trunking for Enterprises

A lot of enterprises are talking about SIP trunking today, but in order to be a part of the conversation you need to know: A) How is a
SIP trunk different than your current PRI trunks?, B) What are the benefits of SIP trunking?, and C) What equipment do you need to get
started? To help you answer A, B and C, we’ve developed this brief introduction, entitled The ABCs of SIP Trunking.

A. SIP Trunks vs. PRI Trunks

To better understand SIP trunking, let’s start at the beginning with the precursor to SIP trunks, known as PRI trunks. PRI stands for Primary Rate Interface, a
technology for delivering multiple channels of voice and data over an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) connection. ISDN connections were popularized in the
1990s as a way to carry both voice and data traffic over existing telephony circuits. PRI trunks could be seen as a kind of “super circuit,” usually consisting of a
single T1 line that supports 24 separate channels of communication: 23 channels for media and one channel for signaling. Thus a
single PRI trunk can support 23 concurrent voice calls or sessions.

Enterprises were originally attracted to PRI trunking because it saved them money. Instead of leasing a dedicated copper line for each
employee at the cost of $40 per line, enterprises could buy a fewer number of PRI channels—e.g., 100 employees might require Internet Service
only 30 open channels at any given time—at a cost of roughly $25 per channel. Each employee would still have a dedicated phone Provider
number, which would managed by an enterprise
device called a PBX. As an added cost savings, Figure 1: Each branch office PBX IP Data

PRI trunking services also included Direct requires a dedicated PRI trunk
Inward Dialing (DID) numbers, which allowed
PRI
enterprises to save money on toll charges by PBX
assigning local office numbers to long-distance PRI
locations (e.g., a salesperson in another region). PSTN Service Corporate WAN
In addition to reducing costs, digital PRI lines Provider
PRI
PBX
also provided faster call completion and better
sound quality than traditional copper lines.

B. The Benefits of SIP Trunking

While PRI trunks are cheaper than copper lines, they still aren’t cheap. A single PRI trunk with a prepaid
limit of long-distance minutes (e.g., 20,000 minutes per month) can cost in excess of $1,000 per trunk per What is a SIP Trunk? (The Roots of the
month to lease from a service provider. And enterprises have limited flexibility when it comes to sizing their
solution; channels are typically bundled in groups of 23, so an enterprise often ends up paying for more Trunking Terminology)
bandwidth than it really needs for each office location (see figure 1). You’ve heard of an elephant’s trunk and even
The advent of Voice over IP (VoIP), however, meant that voice communications were no longer tied to swimming trunks, but what exactly is a SIP trunk?
circuits; they could be delivered over the Internet using SIP. SIP stands for Session Initiation Protocol, The concept of a trunk in telecommunications refers
an IP-based signaling language designed to carry real-time communications (e.g., voice, video, instant to a pipeline of bandwidth that carries voice and/
messaging) over IP networks. With SIP, service providers could now transmit thousands of voice sessions or data services to multiple users and devices. The
on a single SIP trunk over the same Gigabit Ethernet connections used for broadband Internet and data word itself likely has its roots in the concept of a tree
access. The immediate benefit of SIP trunking is the cost savings; session for session, SIP trunks are more trunk: a single, thick connection that branches out
than 25% cheaper than PRI trunks. But SIP trunking also opens the door to operational efficiencies by to multiple points. In the case of a SIP trunk, the tree
combining voice and data communications on the same IP architecture, as well as providing a foundation would look something like this:
for Unified Communications.
> The trunk would be a broadband connection
Here are the top 5 reasons why enterprises should migrate to SIP trunking: (e.g., a Gigabit Ethernet cable) between the
service provider network and the enterprise
1. Enterprise consolidation – Unlike PRI trunks, which require a dedicated connection to every branch network, usually terminating in a Session
Border Controller;
office, a single SIP trunk can serve an entire enterprise (via the enterprise WAN, as pictured in figure 2).
This allows enterprises to combine multiple data/voice networks into a single, centralized data center. > The branches would begin—where else?—at
2. Lower monthly costs – SIP sessions cost less than PRI sessions, sometimes by 50% or more. And
an enterprise device called an IP Private Branch
Exchange (IP-PBX) that manages the phone
because SIP sessions aren’t bundled or locked into a specific location, enterprises can easily size up
services for a particular building or office;
or down the number of sessions they purchase.
> The leaves at the end of those branches
3. Unified Communications – Many enterprises are looking to combine voice, video and data
would be the deskphones, videophones,
applications into a single, seamless user experience. SIP trunking provides the foundation for a Unified
laptops and other communications endpoints
Communications experience by delivering multimedia sessions in real time with the quality and in the enterprise.
reliability that users expect.

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 4. Disaster recovery – With PRI trunks, a
cut circuit or hardware failure can shut
down the communications network for
an entire office. Because SIP trunking is
centralized, enterprises can easily deploy
redundant hardware to ensure high-
availability communications to every office
with no single point of failure.
5. Advanced SIP services –
There are a host of exciting, new IP-
based services that are only available
to SIP-based networks: fixed-mobile
convergence solutions, visual voicemail,
IM-enhanced videoconferencing and more.

C. Wow, SIP trunking sounds great! How do I get started?

Remember, SIP is just a signaling protocol. In order to get the full benefits of SIP in your network, you’ll need three things: a SIP trunk connection (available from many
service providers), a Session Border Controller (to terminate the SIP trunk connection) and a SIP session manager. An SBC provides the security, interoperability and
some of the intelligence (e.g., where to route SIP calls) needed to safely connect SIP trunks with your network. (The SIP service provider also needs an SBC on their
side of the SIP trunk to protect their network.) You can think of an SBC as a SIP super-firewall that includes a host of value-added services like load balancing, least-
cost routing, signaling interworking between different network devices and media transcoding. A session manager is another important component that helps bring all
of the different SIP session elements together, such as your call center, web apps, video, email, voice services and much more.

Enterprises should pay especially close attention when selecting an SBC, and look for features that can add real value to their SIP trunking solution, such as:

> Centralized subscriber and routing databases for simplified provisioning > A redundant, high-availability (99.999%) architecture
of moves, adds and changes across the enterprise
> Built-in media transcoding for wireless and wireline codecs, video and
> Compliance with SIP industry standards like SIPconnect 1.1 HD voice
> Demonstrated interoperability with IP-PBXs, Interactive Voice Response > Protection against Denial of Service attacks, eavesdropping and other
(IVR) systems and other SBCs security threats
> Superior session capacity/performance under high traffic/load conditions

You'll find these features (and many more) in Sonus' family of SBC solutions including the hybrid TDM/IP NBS9000™ Session Border Controller and second-generation
NBS5200™ Session Border Controller. Sonus SBCs protect some of the world's leading service provider networks, so ask your SIP trunking provider if they're using
Sonus SBCs.

PRI Trunks SIP Trunks

23 channels/sessions per trunk Up to 10,000 sessions per trunk

$57.60 per channel per month with 870 LD minutes* $41.40 per session per month with 870 off-network minutes*

Direct Inward Dialing, usually from local destinations only Direct Inward Dialing available from long distance destinations

Dedicated PRI connections for each branch/office One SIP connection for the entire enterprise

Legacy media and signaling (TDM/ISUP) Next-generation media and signaling (RTP/SIP)

* Data courtesy of Gartner, Inc., "How to Leverage SIP Trunks, Session Border Control and Session Management for Cost Savings and UC Deployment"

Sonus Networks, Inc. 4 Technology Park Drive Westford, MA 01886 1.978.614.8100

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