CHANNEL
FEEDBACK
What’s Driving IP Telephony Today?
Is the end of ISDN as a service still the major driver for business use of IP Telephony and are businesses being
driven in the direction of Microsoft in the wake of their introduction of Direct Routing?
Ever since the
announcement that the
supply and support of
ISDN would end in 2025
the channel has been on a
mission to convert end users to
IP based trunks and solutions. If
not a gold rush of opportunity
the end of ISDN at least
provided a great talking point
for resellers to raise with their
customer to get a conversation
going about SIP trunks or hosted
and cloud-based telephony
solutions.
So how is that ISDN driver
holding up?
Myles Leach MD at NFON,
notes that the switch-o of
ISDN and the move towards
All-IP networks was announced
by incumbent carriers in Europe
and in the UK the date was set
at 2025.
“is has resulted in
additional growth in the cloud
PBX segment that has beneted
NFON. We are already seeing
industry abandonment of legacy
technology, such as large PBX
vendors withdrawing support for
on-premise hardware product
lines, and bigger organisations
are already reaping the benets
of commencing their ISDN to
IP conversion strategies.”
“Obviously with ISDN
being phased out in the next
ve years the traditional PBX
is on a gradual decline,” says
Graham Wilkinson at Beyond
Connectivity.
“I think the industry broadly
accepted it would either be
hosted or going down the SIP
trunks road as a replacement.
What’s happening right now has
maybe skewed that thinking.
People are being tempted to do
something sooner rather than
later. It makes a lot of sense too
as even if we get over the current
crisis in the next three or four
months there is a danger the
virus will return again later in
the year.”
Wilkinson concludes,
“Working from home on a
mobile phone, with a bit of
luck you can pick up your
emails. What resellers should
be emphasising is all your
telephony, call recording,
compliance and the ability to
choose to be in or out of hunt
groups goes with you. It’s a more
mature, fuller and less disruptive
working from home scenario. A
complete package.
Peter Oosthuizen, London
is still allows them to
Partner Sales Manager for
benet from the improved
Spitre, says, yes, but it comes
exibility and cost eectiveness
in waves, and outside of that it
of IP telephony. We will likely
is simply a factor in any strategic
see a third wave in the next few
business decision.
months as businesses revaluate
“e rst wave came when
their ability to work remotely
the PSTN shutdown was
due to the Covid-19 crisis and
announced and the early movers
recognise that an onsite PBX is
adopted IP technology. e
not as exible e nal wave
second wave came as onsite
will then come when suppliers
PBXs became end of life and
are no longer able to accept
businesses took this as an
ISDN orders and the nal few
opportunity to retire the onsite
businesses will be forced to
PBX and migrate to a cloudbased
migrate from legacy ISDN to IP
PBX due to the improved
telephony.
functionality and exibility
ese waves will assist the
oered. Other businesses who
sales process through the channel
are pinned to their onsite PBX
giving our partners more reasons
due to signicant investment on
to promote IP telephony to
initial purchase (and could not
customers but outside of this,
justify a replacement) are simply
businesses will continue to
migrating their ISDN to SIP
evaluate their telecoms service
trunks and enabling the onsite
and will make the decision to
PBX for SIP (via PBX licensing
move to hosted telephony as
or a gateway).
part of their strategic business
planning.
End of Life
Tim Kimber, Product Marketing
Director at Vonage says “I think
that the reason ISDN is still
an issue is because the area of
business communications has
been slower to embrace the cloud
than others. at’s all rapidly
changing, however, especially
in light of the recent restrictions
on movement. Organisations
are quickly realising that adding
business communications to
the cloud not only delivers
signicant reductions in cost,
Graham Wilkinson of Beyond Connectivity but a lso reduces complexity.
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