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Infonetics Research has announced its latest ranking of the top 10 SIP trunking providers in a new North American Service Provider Scorecard report.

“All except CenturyLink (News - Alert) have been near the top of the leaderboard for the past seven years and are mainstays in the SIP market, leading in service development and customer adoption," said Diane Myers, research director for VoIP, UC and IMS at IHS (News - Alert).

Verizon took the top spot in Infonetics’ ranking, followed by CenturyLink, AT&T and XO Communications. Rounding out the list were Cox, Fusion, IntelePeer, Level 3, Sprint (News - Alert), Verizon, and Windstream.

Infonetics based the scorecard rankings of the providers on the current installed base, number of lines/trunks, service capabilities, financial stability and market strategy. The rankings are based on the company’s prospects for the providers to succeed in the long term.

Given the weight that the number of lines and financial stability has on the rankings, it’s not surprising that established companies would take the higher rankings. SIP trunking providers compete primarily on cost, and having a large number of installed lines lets them exploit economies of scale to offer lower prices to customers. Only really large providers like Verizon, CenturyLink and AT&T (News - Alert) can really pull this off.

Even though cloud-based VoIP systems are getting popular, a lot of businesses still rely on SIP trunking to connect their VoIP systems to the outside world. It also lets remote workers connect to a corporate office easily.

This is why Infonetics (News - Alert) considers SIP trunking the next generation of VoIP technology. Businesses are seeing the cost saving benefits of VoIP and want to dump their PSTN lines completely in favor of VoIP and unified communications.

 The past year has certainly been an active one in the SIP trunking industry.

"CenturyLink had a big jump in this year's scorecard due to a strong and growing installed base and improved financials. XO continues to have the largest installed base of connectivity trunks. And Level 3 strengthened its position through its acquisition of TW Telecom," Infonetics said.