April 14, 2012

TMC SIP Trunking Week in Review

It was a busy week in the SIP Trunking sector. Here are some of the major stories from TMCnet.

Europ Assistance was able to lower its operating costs through a new SIP trunking solution installed by Acme Packet. The application allowed them to move international their calling operations to a more efficient system. As a result, Europ Assistance saw a reduction in international calling costs of up to 50 percent.

TMCnet’s Gary Kim (News - Alert) reported how it is conventional wisdom that SIP trunks save businesses money when used to support IP telephony traffic. But there now are arguments that this might not be true. That might be troubling news for suppliers selling SIP trunks. Depending on whose research you look at, the penetration rate of SIP trunking in the United States is somewhere between five percent and 30 percent of all trunk lines. Zeus Kerravala estimates penetration is about five percent in the United States, with Europe being about half of that and adoption being almost nonexistent in Asia at the moment.

In another report, the biggest challenge facing the VoIP market is that virtually every business had a telecommunications solution deployed. A huge amount of infrastructure in the form of hardware, cable and servers must be replaced in order for a VoIP solution to be implemented in place of legacy systems. Most companies are unwilling to invest such a huge amount of money to replace an already adequate telecommunications solution. Still, the VoIP market experienced 16-percent growth during 2011. The increase was consistent with a study performed by Infonetics Research which projected a compounding annual growth rate of 16.6 percent over the period of 2011 through 2015.

Telecom expense management (TEM) solutions automate the entire telecom lifecycle and offer many benefits. But organizations frequently have not migrated to automated TEM platforms. A recent mid-market telecom expense management trends survey from CCMI also finds that the lack of sufficient technical and analytical resources hinder telecom expense management in small- and medium-sized businesses.

TMCnet lastly reported that Tampa, FA-based GSA (News - Alert) Applications has been helping many small businesses win government contracts. It has over 800 schedules awarded to date. The latest beneficiary is BandTel, a SIP trunking solutions provider.