SIP vs ISDN – Your Guide to Business Telephony

Many industry experts are predicting the decline of ISDN business telephony and the rise of SIP over the next few years.

Most businesses have been using ISDN telephony since 1988 – the system used by your normal phone and carried through traditional telephone lines. It’s now seen as quite an antiquated system and will soon be taken over by new technology. Digital is everywhere and analogue no longer has the appeal that it used to.

What is SIP?

With the rise in broadband speed, ever greater Wi-Fi connectivity and many regions switching to SIP enabled public branch exchanges, this method of making telephone calls is becoming the platform of choice for many businesses and that trend is set to increase.

SIP stands for session initiation protocol and it offers voice systems over the internet as opposed to the telephone lines used by ISDN. It has a number of benefits over its more archaic relation, chief amongst which are the lower cost and number portability. SIP is also seen as a system that can evolve as our technology advances as opposed to ISDN which is inflexible.

The number of ISDN connections has fallen by 23% since 2007 and more and more businesses are beginning to see the benefits of switching to SIP, causing many market observers to predict the imminent demise of the old ways of making calls.

A recent US based study by Eastern Management Group found that 80% of large businesses (20,000 plus employees) see SIP as extremely important for the future. In 2013, 13% of companies in the US used SIP exclusively and that figure is projected to rise to 42% by 2018 at the very latest.

The benefits of adopting SIP over ISDN telephony

We live in a world where cost and flexibility have become increasingly important to many businesses. The difference nowadays is that many of the technological advances have made it easier to achieve a balance of the two.

* SIP telephony is significantly more cost effective than ISDN. Businesses can save up to 50% on their line rentals and 25% on calls.

* It is flexible. No longer do you have the rigidness of ISDN, you can easily add lines, choose where you want your calls delivered and contact people on the move. That means it can grow with your company and help you get the maximum out of your phone system.

* You can take your number with you or you can choose your own phone number. So if you move to Manchester but want to keep your London number, you can.

* IT support companies are becoming more popular as they can integrate your telephony needs with a wider range of services to meet all your technological needs.

Business telephony is set to make bigger technological advances as we head towards the 2020s. While ISDN may take some time to die out completely, its days are numbered, and there’s no doubt that SIP is going to be the system of choice for an increasing number of businesses in the next 4-5 years. ‘

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