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August 22, 2006
Verizon�s New SIP Trunking and IP Tollfree Offers Greater Benefits to SIP Call Centers
The animated tutorial is available at http://www.techtionary.com or directly at:
http://www.techtionary.com/products/sip-verizon.swf
Verizon Business today introduced new Internet protocol-based capabilities for its Contact Center Services and VoIP portfolio to help businesses enhance customer-service operations and leverage the benefits of VoIP. Verizon Business� IP Trunking delivers VoIP access and essential telephony features to locations with as few as 200 and as many as 1,000 or more IP devices. IP Trunking enables companies that have already invested in IP phones to now connect on as few as a one converged access line for both internal and external traffic. Verizon reports that "companies can control costs because they no longer need to purchase and maintain additional TDM enterprise gateway equipment and can take advantage of network efficiencies inherent in converged access." As shown in the animation, other enhanced SIP-Session Initiation Protocol services might include multi-call center, special routing, enhanced IVR-Integrated Voice Response and content management services.
Shown in the animated tutorial is an example of SIP trunking in a call center environment. This example shows a call dialing a local or toll-free number. The call is terminated by the local PSTN-Public Switched Telephone LEC-Local Exchange Carrier to the SIP gateway. The call is sent to the call center via SIP. Agents in the call center can be optimized to process more calls. In addition, if overload or local assistance is required, the call can be re-routed and terminated by locally. If on-SIPnet, the call is terminated by SIP. If off-net, the call is terminated via PSTN. A SIP trunk is defined as a "logical" voice channel established between servers and/or gateways.
A cursory financial analysis suggests that the costs of the network alone for using a SIP approach might be approximately 80% less for connecting local calls instead of 800 circuits to a distant call center. In addition, the long distance charges of using a SIP network are also considerably less. However, depending on the impact on the data network which may cause a significant impact in all of the "moving parts" such as requiring upgrades in network capacity, call center "busy" capacity, even upgrades to local phone systems and other factors may mitigate overall TCO-Total Cost of Ownership. Verizon also announced �IP Tollfree� which routes incoming toll-free calls over IP to enable greater efficiency and support multiple-contact media, such as phone calls, e-mail or instant messaging from around the globe. The service enables contact center agents to transfer calls using capabilities inherent to the SIP, an important standard for setting up calls and other types of real-time communication on the Internet. IP Tollfree is a network-based service, companies benefit from lower TCO because they do not have to own and operate costly gateway equipment.
One of the key benefits of SIP trunking is to provide enterprise (multi-location) customers the ability to create distinction IP (con)federations (a BGP-Border Gateway Protocol concept) of unique service areas. This approach allows IT management control of ingress and egress calls with security between internal-external and internal-internal calling. In practical terms, voice calls are carried to the closest point of call termination before leaving the SIP network or anywhere in between. This gives IT management the great number of options based on their management priorities such as cost, security, QoS and performance.
For example an Enterprise SIP Proxy server is connected to a Carrier Proxy server and the call is processed without connection to the PSTN. Since SIP is an application layer protocol, SIP trunks can be connected via any Layer 2 protocol such as ATM, Frame, Ethernet, wireless or pure IP networks. With SIP, the intelligence for call setup and features resides on the SIP device or UA-User Agent, such as an IP phone or a PC with voice or IM-Instant-Messaging software. In other words, carriers/providers will offer SIP trunking as a mean for both gateways to PSTN and connection to other SIP networks.
Before embarking on a designing a complex call center SIP network, let's understand all the "moving parts." Shown in the animated tutorial are some of them also taking into consideration that planning for IMS-IP Multi-media Service is also important.
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TECHtionary.com produces dealer and customer training programs, online presentations including iPod and PC formats sales brochures, virtual installation manuals and animated online presentations. The company has more than 2,835+ free online presentations on data communications,, internet, wireless, VoIP-Voice over Internet Protocol, PBX Systems, central office switching, protocols, telephony, telecommunications, networking, routing, IPTV, WiMax, power systems, broadband, WiFi-wireless fidelity and other related technologies available at http://www.techtionary.com. Thomas Cross is a magazine columnist with many key technology publications and a member of the Technical Board of Advisors for the VoIP-Security Alliance. He can be reached at 303-594-1694, or cross@gocross.com. TECHtionary also produces VoIP Dealer Sales and Business Development Training. Some of the key highlights of these courses are: Building a VoIP Business, Selling & Marketing VoIP, Customer and End User Training, VoIP Technology, Network Design, Provisioning, Customer Service, Dealer Portal, and Enhanced & Professional Services. More details on this VoIP Dealer are available by calling Tom Cross at 303-594-1694 or cross@gocross.com. This training is also available for presentation, web seminar or online tutorial.
(source: http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/-verizons-new-sip-trunking-ip-tollfree-offers-greater-/2006/08/22/1823270.htm)
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