Report Ranks Level 3 as the New SIP Trunking Leader

Level 3 is the leader in SIP trunking, according to new data from IHS Markit. Meanwhile, CenturyLink and Verizon are tied for second.

This is Level 3’s first time atop the list, notes Diane Myers, senior research director for VoIP, UC and IMS at IHS Markit. This ranking is based on the fact that Level 3 has the largest installed base of SIP trunks.

“Level 3 rose to the top this year, in part due to consolidated growth including the TW Telecom assets along with an improved financial position,” Myers says.

AT&T and XO Communications are also among the top five SIP trunking service providers. Also among the top 10 in this product category are Fusion, IntelePeer, Sprint, Twilio and Windstream.

Twilio is a new addition to the group, the rest of which Myers notes are mainstays in the market. API company Twilio, she explains, “has steadily built a SIP trunking business with no legacy services to cannibalize and a unique go-to-market strategy.”

Myers in the report also talks about innovations in the SIP trunking market over the past year. That, she says, includes new wireless capabilities, SIP connections over LTE and SIP connections optimized for specific cloud collaboration services like Cisco Spark.

SIP trunking has been one of the major real-time communications of our time, as noted in a recent article by TMC Labs. As discussed in that piece, in the 90s we had CTI and VoIP; the first decade of this century saw SIP and SIP trunking; and now we have WebRTC.

Although SIP trunking is now a well-established business, the number of SIP trunking players and options in the marketplace continues to multiply. For example, just recently Onvoy LLC announced that it has made its SIP trunking offering generally available. The solution is intended for resale by managed services providers, rural local exchange carriers and value-added resellers who want to provide it to business customers in need of local and long-distance services to support their broadband and PBX connectivity needs.

“SIP trunking is a great way for customers with existing on-premises PBXs to retain their investment, while positioning themselves to take full advantage of cloud communications when they are ready,” says Gary Wilson, director of product management at Onvoy. “SIP trunking offers lower telecommunications costs, but at the same time, improves on existing services with features like failover in the cloud.”

Edited by Alicia Young