LIVE STREAM ISDN Migration
“For five years we have been saying the same story. I think partners have been very effective out
there by pitching the end of ISDN.” Guy Miller, Director - Fibre for Everyone, TalkTalk
The ISDN migration continues
We have been talking about it as an industry for five years, there is still another five years to go before the
switch-off (2025) and yet there are still several million lines to switch over to alternative services. In the latest
live stream we spoke to market participants for an update on the ISDN Migration
David Dungay (DD): Are
partners on board with the
migration away from ISDN?
Paul Gibbs, Head of UCaaS
and MidMarket,
Gamma (PG):
I think partners are absolutely
getting it and I think it’s a
huge opportunity for the
marketplace. It has been a long
time since we’ve had such a
big event in the Channel and
I think partners are starting to
understand, although I think
some partners are getting ahead
of themselves thinking it is
happening tomorrow, it’s not.
It’s about making their
customers aware and walking
them down the path of how
they migrate from the current
services they are on to new
services. It’s about showing
them what is available, if they
don’t do that then someone else
will show them.
Guy Miller, Director – Fibre for
Everyone, TalkTalk (GM): For
ve years we have been saying
the same story. I think partners
have been very eective out
there by pitching the end of
ISDN. It has worked to some
degree and a lot of people
have moved. But, if I talk to
partners now I would say 90
per cent of them are swapping
SIP provider to SIP provider,
or SIP to hosted or hosted to
Microsoft services. I think
there is actually a big tranche
of ISDN that hasn’t moved.
I actually think most of the
Channel doesn’t know where
it is, I think BT knows where
it is. Otherwise we would be
attacking it.
We have spent a lot of time
focusing on what is now the
low hanging fruit but the
tricky bit is how we get to the
hard to nd bit, nd out
where they are, and nd out
their problems and why they
haven’t transitioned already.
ere is enough business
case and uses for SIP and
hosted that anyone with a
straightforward model would
have changed. ere must be
other reasons and I don’t think
we have got to the bottom of
that.
Secondly, we have looked
at this from an ISDN point
of view but what about the
WLR3 and SMPF point of
view? We have been focused
on the over the top voice
element but there are lots of
other intrinsic problems and
challenges we will face over
the next few years.
DD: What are you seeing in the
SIP numbers?
Dom Black, Senior Analyst,
Cavell Group (DB): What
we’ve seen on the hosted VoIP
numbers is they have been
increasing year-on-year and
we have had steady growth as
people move their PBX’s to
the cloud. What we’ve seen
on the SIP side however is a
lot of service providers have
stopped selling SIP because
they don’t see long term value
in this going forward. ey
are seeing hosted as the way
they can increase revenue and
increase margins from their
customers. A lot of people are
saying they see SIP as a stepping
stone and so are asking if they
need to take that stepping stone >
48 | Comms Business Magazine | February 2020 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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