The popularity of landlines has greatly decreased, with now only 43% of homes having landlines compared to the 80% of homes that had them 10 years ago with similar scenarios for many businesses. One of the reasons is that Voice over IP (VoIP) delivers major improvements to traditional communication networks.
Whilst many businesses are successfully relying on VoIP for their communications, total VoIP solutions are not appropriate for all markets and failure to recognise this could lead to loss in potential sales against competitors.
To get the flexibility and power of an IP solution as well as catering to the restraints of customers, some markets are turning to a hybrid VoIP network.
Lack of VoIP Availability
For businesses that lack the capabilities to switch to VoIP entirely – for instance from geographical related bandwidth restraints or legal reasons – a VoIP environment can be deployed for an internal network that connects to legacy landlines. Larger businesses could see more productivity in their internal communications and be still connected to the PSTN cloud with an FXO gateway or ATA. This is because they can convert PSTN legacy lines into the modern and more efficient VoIP network.
Mass PSTN to SIP Deployment
The most common reason for hybrid deployments is the hassle of transitioning that many potential residential customers see as a downside to VoIP, as well as the supposed difficulty of mastering the use of a new technology. Many ITSPs worldwide have found that this needs action and one of the best ways to do this is by making the transition as simple as possible. A simple one line ATA means that the customer can continue to use their existing device, without any noticeable changes to how their phone call is actually made – meaning that they can benefit from the savings and advantages from using a SIP trunk over a PSTN line.
Existing Infrastructure Investment
For small to medium sized business, the prospect of completely new communications deployment can be be daunting. There is however a solution to this with construction of a hybrid VoIP network which can maintain the initial analogue investment while taking on the benefits that VoIP and SIP offer. An analogue to VoIP gateway can connect to the legacy telephony endpoints, while also connecting to an IP PBX. Existing analogue devices can also be seamlessly integrated with incoming VoIP trunks and an IP infrastructure.
These 3 hybrid deployments will help pass roadblocks where potential deployments could be ended due to PSTN related reasons and make it easier to understand how to construct a hybrid solution around them. The ability to do this could make or break a sale.
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Check out the full story published by Brian Van Meter at Grandstream here.
