I’m changing my telephone system….should I invest in ISDN lines or SIP connectivity?
Today, when thinking about changing your company telephone system this is one of the key decisions you will need to make. As your new investment is likely to be with you in more than 5 years’ time, it’s important you make the right choice and get the right type of connectivity at the outset. This article will hopefully give you all of the information you need about both ISDN and SIP connectivity to make an informed decision.
So, how are SIP and ISDN different from each other?
ISDN is a dedicated Voice connection from your telephone system to the Public Network. SIP is always delivered over good quality Data connectivity handling Voice, Data and Video.
SIP Trunks
Advantages:
- If you have 10 or more channels of ISDN already and are changing your telephone system you will not have to buy hardware to connect the system to ISDN and the ongoing monthly charge will be in most cases much less than ISDN.
- In most cases you will not use all of the bandwidth on your new connection and so the spare bandwidth could be used for other things such as Internet connectivity or backup for your data.
- Inbound calls via SIP can be automatically redirected to other numbers in the event of a problem with your connectivity. Furthermore, each of your numbers can be redirected to the same or different numbers.
- Our standard high connectivity options for Voice come with better Service Level than ISDN – 6 hour Fix.
Disadvantages:
- Delivering Voice in this method relies on very good connectivity. This can be expensive depending on the options available to you at your location.
ISDN Lines
Advantages:
- Depending on where you are located, connectivity options for SIP vary and in some cases your location may not be suitable. ISDN is more widely available.
Disadvantages:
- Can often be much more expensive in terms of ongoing costs when compared to using SIP.
- No automatic failover of inbound calls to alternative numbers.
- Requires expensive telephone system hardware to connect the ISDN to the telephone system.
- Will only support Voice and not Data or Video.