Before we talk about SIP Trunking we need to know a bit about VoIP and SIP. Everyone has a good idea of what VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is. With Australia’s move to fibre based internet like the NBN the concept of making phone calls using VoIP across the internet has become common. These phone calls connect up to a Hosted PBX and are then routered as required. .For additional Information on a Hosted PBX go HERE.

In Australia, the industry has standardised on SIP as the protocol of choice for phone calls on data networks. SIP is the technology stack used for establishing voice communications over data networks. This technology stack can be used for voice, data, and video. Services that can traverse SIP include instant messaging, presence updates, multimedia, conferencing, and other real-time services. Session Initiation Protocol was created by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF.) IETF created SIP as an open-signalling protocol standard.

More information on sip can be found at the IETF website.

A more detailed explanation of SIP can be found at Wikipedia

A SIP Trunk provides the same service you get from a traditional analogue phone line or a channel (trunk) on a PRI. The difference is, instead of being a physical wire, a SIP Trunk is a “virtual” phone line which is provided by a SIP trunk provider. It uses your data circuit (NBN, Cable modem, DSL, Ethernet over Copper, Fiber, Optitcomm, OpeNetworks or other connection.) to connect your phone system to the Internet.

SIP Trunks are used by business for Unified Communications which incorporates all of the benefits mentioned in the SIP description above.

One of the real benefits of SIP Trunking is if you are not quite ready to make a move to out KloudPhone Hosted PBX you can still keep your existing internal PABX and use our SIP Trunks with either a gateway or an add-in card to your existing phone system.

A more detailed explanation of SIP Trunking can be found at Wikipedia

Once you have decided to upgrade your internal Phone system to be a SIP based you know need to look at whether your internet connection will be able to handle the additional voice traffic. Failure to have a correctly sized internet connection will result in all those horror stories that went around in the early VoIP days a reality. 

You consider a dedicated Internet line for the SIP trunk. Most firewalls are able to handle multiple WAN connections, and, considering the low cost of an Internet line in most places, a separate VoIP connection will be the most reliable way to ensure the quality of your VoIP calls. 

However, you can use a correctly sized Internet line. In this case, we need to check that your firewall is up-to-date and will be capable of handling VoIP traffic correctly. The firewall will be responsible for segregating and prioritising your voice traffic over the data traffic.