Flowroute has announced that it has become the first SIP provider to qualify as a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC) across the United States.

This means that Flowroute can offer phone numbers, inbound and outbound calling, messaging, and advanced signaling at carrier-grade quality. In short, it’s the first SIP provider that’s a real phone company.

"The telecommunications industry is on the cusp of a significant wave of innovation as organizations of all sizes are exploring new ways to incorporate calling and messaging into their applications and services," said Bayan Towfiq, co-founder and chief executive officer of Flowroute. "Being certified as a carrier underscores Flowroute's unique ability to connect enterprises and developers with reliable communications services that will yield cost savings, create new revenue streams, and offer compelling user experiences."

Customers can choose either local or toll-free numbers in the U.S. and Canada as well as port their existing numbers.

Flowroute is touting these features to developers. Being certified as a carrier will give developers the ability to create powerful applications using advanced SIP voice and messaging features.

Developers can write applications that determine the type of phone line being used, manage caller ID, label and forward calls. It also supports toll fraud and runaway phone call protection. Flowroute accounts are managed through a Web-based portal.

As a pure SIP provider, Flowroute can offer more efficient call routing than through the PSTN.

Flowroute scales up with developer needs so they don’t have to negotiate for more capacity.

The company’s certification shows how much VoIP and SIP trunking has become a mainstream communications technology. It was originally a way to take advantage of the flexibility of VoIP PBX (News - Alert) systems while avoiding a separate PSTN line. It’s paved the way for the current revolution in unified communications.

More SIP providers will likely be certified and it will simply become the way most landline phone service is done in the future.