SIP Trunking with Lync

I’m not alone in talking about SIP Trunking and SIP Trunking providers, as it turns out. SIP Trunks, as I discussed in this blog post, can provide a lot of benefits, not the least of which is cost reduction. The more you look at Sip Trunk Providers, though, the more you realise that not all providers are equal.

Microsoft has done a good job in qualifying Sip Trunk Providers and publishes a list of such providers at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/lync/fp179863.aspx. This page lists the various qualified carriers and their service name. By ‘qualified’, each of the listed providers has been independently reviewed and their product is seen to support all the necessary Unified Communications Open Interoperability Program  (UCOIP) requirements. You can read more about these requirements here.

In his blog, Jonathan Steeman looks at some of the differences between SIP providers in terms of the functions and features they provide. The more I read this post, the more it is clear that there really is a great deal of difference between the qualified trunk providers. If you are considering a SIP trunk, then you should take a close look at this blog entry and work out which of the mentioned features are important to you.

I’d love to hear of any experiences, good or bad, you are having with any of these named providers.

Technorati Tags: SIP Trunk Provider

SIP Trunking–Do You Need and SBC?

On Monday, I posted an article regarding an upcoming SIP Trunking webcast. In that article, I suggested that you can implement a Sip Trunk without a PSTN gateway. For the most part this is the case, but as one reader, Andy McAllister, pointed out, you probably are going to want a Session Boarder Controller to terminate the VPN between you and the SIP Provider. So the rosy picture painted in the earlier article is not altogether correct. Having said that, SIP Trunks typically offer lower cost telephony as well as increased flexibility in provisioning and de-provisioning.

Technorati Tags: Lync,Sip Trunk,SBC

SIP Trunking Webcast

A SIP Trunk is a connection from your telephony solution to the PSTN via a SIP Provider. For Lync, this means the route to the PSTN is via the SIP provider, with all the signaling traffic being SIP and the audio being sent via RTP. This avoids having to have a local gateway to convert the signaling and audio into what the PSTN interface requires. SIP providers can be a cheaper PSTN Interconnection alternative to going direct to your local PSTN (e.g. British Telecom).

This means the PSTN connection is at level 3 in the ISO stack, not level 2 (which the normal PSTN connection uses). Someday, in the not overly far future I suggest that all PSTN connections will be via direct SIP, although it may take a few decades to get there.

Sip Trunks can provide many advantages. They can often be a cheaper PSTN Interconnection alternative to going direct to your local PSTN (e.g. British Telecom). They are also are a lot easier and faster to provision than traditional Level 2 connections. And, in many cases, you can create a short term trunk (e.g. for some event) more cost effectively than a traditional PSTN line.

With Lync 2013, SIP Trunks are very easy to integrate into your environment and can provide great cost savings – if nothing else, you don’t need separate PSTN gateways! If you are planning on deploying Lync Enterprise Voice, SIP trunks are something worth looking at.

Enterprise Connect Webinars are holding a 1-hour webcast on Jan 29th at 19:00 GMT – sadly late in the day for the UK, but mid afternoon EST and late morning on USA’s west coast. This web cast will describe the opportunities and challenges of SIP Trunking and will feature a detailed case study. You can signup for the webinar on line: Here.

Technorati Tags: SIP,SIP Trunk,Lync

I’m Going to TechEd US!

Every year, like many of you, I submit proposals for TechEd. In recent years, they’ve been less than successful – the competition is very fierce and there is so much great content to choose from. I almost have to feel sorry for the Microsoft folks having to wade through hundreds of proposals.

This year, I submitted three talks, two around PowerShell and one around OCS. To my great surprise and delight, one has thus far been accepted! YEAH

The accepted break out sessions, part of the Unified Communications track, is entitled “SIP - Naked In All Its Glory”. The abstract for the talk is:

This session will look at the key protocols behind Microsoft's OCS product, in particular Session Initiaion Protocol as well as Real Time Transfer Protocol (RTP) and Session Description Protocol. A short discussion on TCP, TLS, and PSOM will also be given. The talk will focus on looking at the SIP and related protocols "on the wire". We'll dive in to using NetMon as well as OCS's Snooper tool. Troubleshooting SIP will be the final part of this talk.

I’m still waiting on the other two talk proposals. The other proposed talks are PowerShell related and are titled: “PowerShell and WMI”, and “Writing Production Quality Power Shell Scripts with PowerShell V2 and Windows Serer 2008 R2”. I await the verdict on those two talks, but would like to think that at least one will get accepted

Irrespective of the PowerShell talks, I’m really excited that I’ll be a speaker again. LA, here I come!

Technorati Tags: TechEd US,TechEd,OCS,PowerShell,SIP