SIP Trunking and Hosted PBX in Canada will speed HD Voice for small business
SIP trunks are simply another way of saying VoIP Provider for your phone system. A SIP trunk is a connection from a PBX (phone system) using SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) to an ITSP (Internet Telephony Service Provider).
It might sound complicated but it’s really quite simple, SIP trunks take the place of your legacy telephone company. Most phone systems out there today are more than a couple of years old and are likely based on circuit switched technology. Newer IP-PBXs use packet switching technology, which means they leverage the Internet to deliver the same features you have now, and then some. The difference could be minor or major depending on what your PBX is capable of and what your ITSP can deliver in terms of features and functionality.
Since the PSTN (public switch telephone network) is tied to aging circuit switched technology it has limitations in terms of what media it can support. Essentially, it can deliver low quality voice, that’s it.
SIP Trunks replace older PRI and POTS interfaces that we are used to and bring to the table a wide variety of communications options. Depending on your IP-PBX and your ITSP you could potentially look forward to HD (High Defenition) Voice and potentially HD Video.
HD voice (and video) for small business in Canada will happen, it’s only a matter of time. As broadband providers increase upstream bandwidth and dual WAN link-failover devices become common place, SIP trunking will accellerate in growth and on-net (calls made on the ITSP network) HD Voice will become common place.
Unfortunately, HD communication off-net (eg. PSTN) is not going anywhere at any great speed. Jeff Pulver is back as he reboots the communications industry with his new HD Communication Summit. I welcome Jeff back with open arms, if anyone can convince operators to increase speed towards wide-band/HD adoption it would Jeff Pulver.
Today we can see SIP trunking providers and hosted pbx providers supporting wideband codecs and devices on their networks. This will allow user to communicate in high definition with other users that have devices that support it, in brief you could have better calls between you and your colleagues in the office and remote office workers connected to the same PBX, and that is a step in the right direction.
Think Ahead When Selecting Your Network UC Infrastructure Solution
As we tried to (re)define SaaS and evaluate how different enterprise applications fit into this model, we assessed the different UC platforms from a SaaS point of view.
As I have previosuly stated, given the interoperability challenges when integrating disparate applications into an end-to-end unified communications solution, a pre-integrated service package offered on a hosted/SaaS basis provides great value to business users. But how flexible are service provider application platforms for a SaaS model given that most businesses have some existing premise-based infrastructure? And is SaaS really a panacea for the ailing communications market?
Let’s start by saying that, according to my colleague Melanie Turek (please see her post on SaaS – Enterprise 2.0 Blog » Melanie Turek, as well as Software as a Service: Everything Old is New Again), the SaaS story actually dates back to the dot.com era and the hype around the ASP model. In the old days, most hosted platforms were as monolithic as premise-based solutions which gave little chance to service providers to add more value to the service or differentiate. Today, it is still difficult to figure out to what extent different hosted IP services can also be considered SaaS. SaaS and hosted services bear a lot of similarities; yet, SaaS implies Web-based applications and also the ability of the service provider to manipulate, manage, upgrade, etc. the applications and fully control the back end of the platform in order to provide flexible services to its customers.
Open (understandably, somewhat of an arbitrary term), SIP-based platforms are opening up new opportunities for service providers today. Looking at the IP hosted telephony space, we can see that several of the service providers deploying a BroadSoft platform (including former General Bandwidth/Tekelec/VocalData and Sylantro solutions) have enhanced their service offerings by adding their own applications and improving the backend capabilities for faster and easier quotes, provisioning and service management. Some of the hosted IP telephony providers such as CallTower, Cypress Communications, Engage Incorporated, M5, Smoothstone, Vantage Communications and others have sought to deliver various communication and business applications (telephony, call control/contact center applications, chat/presence, etc., CRM) packaged in a SaaS/CaaS (Communications as a Service) manner.
BroadSoft is opening up its APIs for mashups and the potential integration of its voice communication platform with other applications for the delivery of more comprehensive service packages from the “cloud”. Not long ago it enabled the integration of services delivered on the BroadWorks platfrom with salesforce.com. More recently, LightEdge introduced a hosted UC package based on BroadSoft’s telephony platform and OCS, which shows that there exists a viable opportunity for service providers deploying BroadSoft solutions to expand their offerings with UC capabilities.
As mentioned in a previous post, UC platforms such as OCS and MCS currently used by CallTower and Cypress Communications, the two hosted UC leaders today, do not scale easily to multi-vendor PBX environments, which has pre-determined these providers’ business models whereby they offer a full package of telephony, VM/UM + chat/presence/UC + conferencing capabilities to their customers. This model certainly has its value and benefits to both the providers and their customers, however, it limits the overall target audience to those customers that do not have PBXs.
Cypress Communications, well ahead of everyone else with over 10,000 hosted UC seats today, claims that its Nortel infrastructure – MCS5200 and CS2000 – is one of the best solutions for delivering hosted communications to businesses. CS2000 is a scalable, robust, feature-rich platform that provides all the enterprise telephony capabilities required by business users. MCS52000, on the other hand, is one of the leading UC platforms available on the market today. I would like to point out, however, that Cypress Communications has been able to successfully leverage the capabilities of these platforms to grow its hosted UC base because of its ability to support the service all the way to the desktop including the router and the LAN switch.
CallTower, on the other hand, has experienced slower growth with its hosted telephony offering based on a Cisco UC Manager, but is looking to accelerate sales with a more comprehensive hosted UC package including network-based OCS. Going forward, CallTower is planning to leverage OCS for telephony as well.
There is a third company offering hosted UC and it’s probably the very first company that tapped into this opportunity four years ago – Engage Incorporated. Engage uses Siemens’ OpenScape to deliver voice as well as a number of other communication applications to its customers on a SaaS basis. Engage has had somewhat of a limited success as it has so far tried to bundle communications with other business applications – CRM, ERP, etc. – delivered as SaaS. OpenScape provides it with a unique competitive advantage, however, as it integrates with any PBX, any IM/chat client and any other vendor’s applications. It is one of the most open technologies available on the market today and is uniquely positioned as it does not seek to replace existing telephony or IM solutions but rather acts as the glue that converts disparate applications into a comprehensive unified communications environment.
While most service providers currently involved or considering hosted UC options already have some hosted/SaaS offerings – some started with email, others with telephony, yet others with CRM, etc. – going forward, hosted UC will provide an attractive revenue opportunity for telcos, VARs, etc., that do not yet have any hosted apps in their portfolio. Such providers may wish to consider OpenScape UC as it can enable them to integrate with multiple different premise-based infrastructure environments. Further, HiPath 8000 (OpenScape Voice) can enhance such service provider offerings with a telephony option as well. Developed from a softswitch and providing a robust PBX feature set, it provides a competitive alternative to existing hosted telephony platforms.
Siemens has long claimed to be striving to become a services company and with its open communications approach it seems well positioned to become one of the leading CaaS providers. Partnerships are going to be critical for its success in that space.
SaaS, and communications as a service, in particular, is not a panacea, neither today in the economic downturn, nor in the long term. It does offer a growth opportunity for service providers, however, and a viable option for businesses to test and trial new technologies and applications. Selecting the right platform from the start is going to determine each provider’s success in this space. Therefore, decision makers need to evaluate not only the existing platforms and their capabilities, but also each vendor’s vision and roadmap in order to make the right choice.
Hosted UC
With all the hype about Unified Communications and its productivity benefits, it is imperative we remind end users of the tremendous integration challenges they are bound to face when looking to integrate a large set of disparate applications. While vendors claim they have ensured interoperability with various partners and competitors, the market is still so nascent that the hassles may very well exceed the benefits for many businesses seeking to deploy a complete unified communications solution (IM/chat+telephony+VM/UM+conferencing, etc.).
Therefore a hosted UC service seems to offer a major benefit – a service provider has already dealt with all integration challenges and can deliver a package of applications that it also continues to manage, upgrade and enhance as the technologies evolve. Add to this the flexibility of a hosted offering (the ability to drop or add users as the business downsizes or grows) and a hosted UC solution seems perfect for the current economic climate.
It is not so simple, however. In a scenario where all applications are hosted, the assumption is that the customer has no or limited premise-based infrastructure. Otherwise, the service provider and the business face the same old interoperability/integration challenge. That holds particularly true if the IM/chat/UC platform is hosted. Most UC platforms (MCS, OCS, Sametime, etc.) do not scale to multiple premise-based PBXs. Which basically makes hosted UC highly correlated with customer demand for hosted telephony.
So far, the North American hosted IP telephony service market has experienced slow growth due to multiple factors including greater customer familiarity with premise-based platforms and a large installed PBX base, fragmented competitive landscape with limited involvement of established service providers, and lack of aggressive marketing resulting in low awareness of the value of hosted IP telephony. Frost & Sullivan estimates less than one million installed hosted IP telephony lines as of the end of 2008, which is fairly insignificant compared to a total of over 100 million business telephony lines (hosted and PBX) in North America.
Over the past couple of years, equipment vendors made significant efforts to enable the integration of their premise-based platforms with other communication and business applications in complex unified communications (UC) and communication-enabled business process (CEBP) environments. These technology advancements and the respective marketing efforts have greatly popularized the benefits of premise-based IP telephony and have driven high adoption rates. Hosted IP telephony providers, on the other hand, continue to market their services primarily as cost-effective voice communications, which has limited their value proposition for business customers. Therefore, hosted IP telephony penetration remains limited to small businesses of less than 50 users.
Going forward, hosted IP telephony services will continue to offer a somewhat limited value proposition until integration with hosted or premise-based communication and business applications becomes more common across providers. In the meantime, premise-based IP telephony offerings will make a significant progress in terms of features, integration with UC platforms, CEBP, and cost-efficient branch-office integration. Combined with customers’ historical preference for premise-based solutions and familiarity with PBX vendors and their VARs, as well as with vendor and VAR creative leasing and financing programs, this trend is likely to determine a general preference for IP PBXs versus hosted IP telephony among business customers (the few that may choose to make an investment in this climate).
In North America, hosted UC accounted for about 20K lines at the end of 2008. As I mentioned earlier, hosted UC will be highly correlated with hosted telephony. I do, however, expect some service providers to choose to host only OCS or another IM/presence/UC client and integrate with either hosted telephony services delivered by other service providers or with premise-based telephony as interoperability improves. There could be other scenarios, where the telephony is hosted and OCS is premise-based. I believe such hybrid implementations will be rare in the near future, but the latter kind will gain traction more rapidly.
I can only make an intelligent guess about the size of hosted UC (combined pure network-based implementations and hybrid ones) going forward since there is no historical evidence of adoption rates. I believe, it is reasonable to expect hosted UC to penetrate one million users in North America within the next five years. Based on my forecast for North American hosted telephony, hosted UC will then account for about 30% of total North American hosted telephony and a negligible percentage of total UC users.
SMB Phone Inc. Obtains Internet Telephony Service Provider (ITSP) Certification For New Microsoft 'Response Point' Small Business Phone System
SMB Phone Inc. obtains Microsoft certification for Response Point and announces early release of SMB Digital Voice™
SMB Phone Inc. (SMBPhone.ca) announced today it has obtained certification as an Internet Telephony Service Provider (ITSP) for Microsoft’s small business phone system/IP PBX “Response Point”. This certification marks the beta service offering of SMB Phone’s digital telephone service: SMB Digital Voice, made specifically for Microsoft Response Point phone systems.
“We are very excited to be able to bring our new SMB Digital Voice service to small and medium business in Canada,” said Trent Johnsen, Founder & VP Sales. “We believe our certification will help us achieve the goal of becoming the de-facto telephone service provider for Response Point in Canada. Until recently the only way small business in Canada could integrate scalable and reliable telephony services was through acquisition of expensive equipment and analog circuits from old-school telephone companies. SMB Phone has removed those barriers by integrating with Response Point and allowing our customers to leverage our national access to the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network).”
SMB Digital Voice™ features:
- $29.95 Digital Business Telephones Lines
- Competitive Long Distance (North America)
- Competitive International Long Distance Rates
- Free calling between offices on SMB Phone network
- Free inter-branch call transfer
- Free local calling
- Free Caller ID
- Burstable Voice Channels (Auto-expandable phone service)
- Local Number Portability (Transfer your existing phone number)
- e911
- 611 (direct support number)
- Multiple regional phone numbers (get a phone number almost anywhere in Canada)
- SMB Anywhere™ (support for remote users)
Customers interested in participating in the early release program for SMB Digital Voice™ will receive 30 days free and a 50% monthly discount off the subscription rate. For more information please call +1 (866) 473-0516, ask for ‘sales’.
About SMB Phone Inc.
SMB Phone is a premium Canadian business telephone company designed exclusively to serve Microsoft Response Point customers. SMB Phone services are created just for Response Point and the way Small Medium Business work today. Response Point makes it easy to use, grow and manage your small business communications needs. SMB Phone make it easy to obtain accompanying business quality telephone service. Order Response Point online.
For more information about SMB Phone Inc. :
Email | +1 (866) 473-0516
Innovative Phone System Benefits Local Company
As our little telecommunications company continues to grow Microsoft continues to take notice. Most recently our partners in Redmond have completed and published a case study on one of our customers “True North Drafting” (TND) a specialist in creating the detailed shop drawings that guide the fabrication and on-site installation of commercial-grade glass and aluminum structures.
TND has been a long time customer of ours and before purchasing their Response Point small business phone system they were using the Lypp conference call services.
This marks the second Lypp case study by Microsoft. The first was on Lypp itself, as a value added reseller for Response Point.
Thanks goes out to Rex and his team at Microsoft for the mention and to our customer of the month, “True North Drafting”, for their ongoing support.
SMB Phone Systems Expands Microsoft Response Point Offer To Alberta
As many of you already know, I have been building up a PBX equipment vendor and interconnect specializing in Microsoft’s Response Point small phone systems. I have done a number of Response Point installations (many more since that post) in the Lower Mainland and my customers seem genuinely happy. With this in mind I decided to expand into Alberta.
“SMB Phone Systems” now has installers and sales personnel in Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary. I have a long list of referral customers, spanning many verticals, ranging from 1 person to 20 workstations that would be happy to provide their honest opinion on the Response Point system and their experiences with my newest little venture.
If you are a small business located in Vancouver, Edmonton or Calgary and find yourself in need of a Small Office Phone System be sure to visit our website “SMBPhoneSystems.ca” or call sales at (866) 473-0516 ext.1.
Small Business IP Phones Now Cordless
Aastra recently launched it’s AastraLink RP™ platform in support of the Microsoft® Response Point™ phone system software. Let me say, the Aastra IP Phones kick butt!
Aastra really went the distance on the IP Phones for their initial roll out of AastraLink RP™. They incorporated some features you are not going to find on any other Response Point handset, namely the cordless version (6757i CT RP) seen above.
Microsoft® Response Point™ is now available in 3 flavors; D-Link, Syspine and now Aastra. They each have their strong points and all will certainly be contenders in the rebirth of this market. They can all be bought online at SMBPhoneSystems.ca
I will be doing a full review of the AastraLink RP system once I have find time to write it up.
Small Business Internet Phone Services
U.S. competition appears to be heating up in the Small Business (SMB) Internet Phone Service market, but vendors are still wet behind the ears.
Although it may seem like there is no shortage of choices for Business Internet Phone Services most of the service providers are still not delivering IP business phone lines in any way that the consumer can understand.
There is also a misconception that Internet Phone Service and Business Phone Service delivered over the Internet are the same thing, they are not. In fact, they are quite different.
Many of the companies out there are marketing these service as if they are the same thing and many SMBs are being fooled into thinking that this is the case. This could easily spell certain disaster for Small Businesses and does the entire small business community a disservice.
Best efforts Internet phone services have zero Quality of Service (QOS). This includes Vonage, Packet8, Lingo and there are many more. These services should NOT be used as a replacement for your primary business lines.
QOS is an important piece of any Phone Service that many Internet Phone Service providers prefer not talk about, it’s their Achilles’ heel.
Without a guaranteed Quality of Service your provider can not say if your call experience will be mostly good or mostly bad. I don’t care who they are or what they say, there is nothing that any service provider can do today to deliver a reliable best efforts Internet Phone Service unless they own the Internet service as well.
About the only company out there that seems to have done this reasonably well is Cbeyond. Their website says..
Designed with small businesses in mind, Cbeyond offers flexible services and fully-loaded packages that meet your needs. Explore our packages that integrate high-speed T-1 internet access, local and long distance voice service, toll-free numbers, mobile and more— delivering all your communication needs on a single bill.
Sadly, their service area is limited:
* Atlanta
* Chicago
* Dallas-Fort Worth
* Denver
* Detroit
* Greater San Francisco Bay Area
* Houston
* Los Angeles
* Miami
* Minneapolis/St. Paul
* San Diego
No, I do not own stock in Cbeyond, but maybe I should buy some considering the lack of competition out there. Especially since their stock price is a mere 30% percent of it’s 52 week high.
Canada is even worse off than the US. Not only is their no Cbeyond but there is no real T-1 infrastructure that’s affordable. Shaw is probably the most competitive in the West for T-1s, but at $400/month it’s nothing a Small Business in Canada would get excited about.
So the question is, who will deliver Business VoIP service for the rest of us? I think there is a huge opportunity here and it doesn’t seem to be something that the incumbents are likely to be all that motivated to pursue anytime soon.
Hosted VoIP for SMB in Vancouver
A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine told me that he was setting up a new Real Estate company here in Vancouver and already had hired 25 people. He needed a scalable phone system that would grow with him and would cost an arm and a leg in up-front capital costs. If anyone would have asked me 3-5 years ago I would have said there is no such thing. Today its a different story, or is it?
I had met a fellow a couple of years back at VON Canada who was running a very small SMB VoIP company called Shift Networks (traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol SHF) . Trent Johnsen struck me as a very capable and professional CEO. We had some great conversations about SIP, VoIP, Softphones, Presence et al. As it turns out Trent had a couple of tickets to the Jays game that night so we continued our conversation at the ball park. I had a blast! How refreshing it was to meet an executive in the industry who is all about business but yet still understands how to enjoy his work.
So when I was sourcing this SMB VoIP offering I right away thought of Trent. I found his company Shift Networks on the web. Shift has their HQ in Calgary and the website mentioned that they would have dial tone in Vancouver around this time. Before talking to Trent I had some good conversations with the sales and technical staff. It was starting to sound like this could be a good solution for my friends new company in Vancouver.
I called my contacts in the SIP feature server and softswitch world and soon found out that it was pretty slim pickings for hosted business-class VoIP here in Vancouver or in Canada for that matter.
I called Trent and we talked for some time about their current offering and where the company was headed. I came to the conclusion that they had done a great job in laying the initial groundwork for what could be the next Covad in Canada. Trent started talking about his plans for IP business applications and that really peaked my interest. From what I heard I would say that Shift is set to be a real contender in the SMB VoIP market giving Bell and Telus a run for their money, which shouldnt be too hard 😉 Shift already has people on the ground here in Vancouver and one of their first customers here could very well be a new real estate company. With Trent at the wheel you can bet that there will be some great apps coming down the pipe as well.
Shifts offering can grow and move with your company. If you are business owner and you are thinking of a new PBX or phone system take a look at Shift.
WebRTC.is 