The recent release of the 2015 IHS (News - Alert) Infonetics SIP Trunking North American Service Provider Scorecard brought no shortage of revelations about the session initiation protocol (SIP) and voice-related services field. But perhaps the biggest bombshell was the revelation that XO Communications (News - Alert) holds the largest portfolio of SIP connectivity trunks installed in the United States.

XO Communications offers a very valuable proposition to its users: it allows for the combination of voice, data and Internet service all in one, allowing all three of these services to take place over one standard Internet protocol (IP) connection. With this comes an array of unified communications (UC) tools as well as some worthwhile business continuity tools, making it possible to better communicate and keep the business operating on some level even when disaster strikes.

With over 2,900 cities in its customer roster, and fully 80 percent of the major metropolitan markets in the United States currently working with the company as well, XO Communications' rank as top of the heap seemed solid enough, and likely with good reason.

XO Communications didn't just have a position in SIP trunking and UC, though; the company recently offered a keynote address at ITEXPO (News - Alert), describing the connection that communications services providers should have to network functions virtualization (NFV) and software defined networking (SDN), two major new frontiers in communications technology.

As explained by XO Communications' senior vice president of marketing and product, Jake Heinz, XO Communications offers something very valuable: the ability to make operations simpler overall, and with that simplicity, reduce costs and increase productivity.

Heinz elaborated, “With XO SIP, businesses can capitalize on a wide variety of unified communications applications that cost-effectively boost worker productivity. We are experiencing brisk demand for our SIP trunks that enable businesses to reduce costs, simplify management and leverage productivity while maximizing the value of IT and network investments.”

Being able to spout phrases like “the biggest” in marketing materials can really add credibility to a campaign. XO Communications can sell on the basis of that, and also adjust some of its sales strategies less toward customer acquisition—though that will always be a necessary part of the operation—and more toward customer retention. If it can hold its current roster, it's likely to remain the biggest in the field. Other companies, meanwhile, will likely focus on acquisition to break off entrenched clients from XO Communications.

This is exciting news for the company. It's also exciting news for the rest of the market, which now knows who to target in order to take over that top slot. A lot of courses have likely been set as a result of this, and some changes are likely to follow in short order.