IP-PBX Advantage: SIP Peering

A Customer Center entry from May 24, 2007
by Mae Kowalke - TMCnet Associate Editor for Channels

An IP PBX is, quite simply, the next generation of a business phone system. Because an IP PBX is a software-based phone system, it’s affordable for even small businesses, is easy to install and maintain, and is simple to configure using a graphical user interface. These advantages of an IP PBX are pretty well-known in the telephony world. But an IP PBX offers other advantages as well.

One such IP PBX advantage is the ease with which the phone systems at multiple office locations can be linked together. Let’s say, for example, that your company wants to use an IP PBX in each of its two offices, one in Los Angeles and one in Tokyo, to enable 3-digit extension dialing between the locations. Because each IP PBX is based on the open SIP protocol, and because it uses Voice over IP (VoIP) service via an broadband Internet connection, this functionality is a snap to achieve.

How is this IP PBX function possible? The answer involves understanding a little bit about SIP and VoIP, and how these two things relate to an IP PBX. SIP, which stands for Session Initiation Protocol, is an signaling protocol used by the IP PBX to create, modify and terminate sessions between callers. VoIP is, at its simplest level, voice service that uses the Internet as a transmission medium for phone calls. When these two things come together with an IP PBX, great things can happen.

In the case of the two offices, each with an IP PBX software system installed, and a broadband Internet connection, SIP can be used to connect calls free of charge and with 3-digit extension dialing. This IP PBX functionality is called SIP peering. Using the browser-based interface that came with the IP PBX, it is possible to, with relative ease, configure the two peers (in this case, the two offices) and specify how the system should route calls between them.

The advantage of using an IP PBX at each office to enable SIP peering is two-fold. First, using an IP PBX in this way saves time for employees (no more dialing international numbers). Second, this IP PBX functionality saves the company money because there are no long-distance fees involved.

When one looks closer at an IP PBX, it becomes clear that this new type of phone system is not only less expensive and more manageable than a traditional PBX, but also that an IP PBX offers new types of functionality with a new level of ease. SIP peering is just one example of what an IP PBX can do for you, and for your business.

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Mae Kowalke previously wrote for Cleveland Magazine in Ohio and The Burlington Free Press in Vermont. To see more of her articles please visit Mae Kowalke’s columnist page.

— May 24, 2007