{"id":9532,"date":"2016-07-11T10:48:51","date_gmt":"2016-07-11T17:48:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/?p=9532"},"modified":"2017-05-11T09:10:30","modified_gmt":"2017-05-11T16:10:30","slug":"cloud-therapy-ep-011-sip-trunking-installation-best-practices-with-roger-arnett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/cloud-therapy-ep-011-sip-trunking-installation-best-practices-with-roger-arnett\/","title":{"rendered":"Cloud Therapy: EP 011 &#8211; SIP Trunking Installation Best Practices with Roger Arnett"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SIP-Trunking-Best-Practices.jpg\" rel='magnific'><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-9533\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SIP-Trunking-Best-Practices.jpg\" alt=\"SIP Trunking Best Practices\" width=\"548\" height=\"304\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SIP-Trunking-Best-Practices.jpg 810w, https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SIP-Trunking-Best-Practices-300x167.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SIP-Trunking-Best-Practices-250x139.jpg 250w, https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SIP-Trunking-Best-Practices-600x333.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 548px) 100vw, 548px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Long-time voice and data engineer and current sales engineer for <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/company-profile\/fusion\" target=\"_blank\">Fusion<\/a><\/span>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/roger-arnett-4047205\/\" target=\"_blank\">Roger Arnett<\/a> shares 5 best practices for installing\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/our-products\/access\/voice\/sip\/\" target=\"_blank\">SIP trunking<\/a><\/span>. Roger has engineered hundreds of SIP installations and has gathered a vast amount of wisdom on this topic. From how to evaluate your access method, to how to fill out porting paperwork properly, to how to set up test calls, Roger tells us several easy-to-understand methods to ensure your company has a flawless SIP installation.<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"border: none;\" src=\"\/\/html5-player.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/4469904\/height\/90\/width\/640\/theme\/custom\/autonext\/no\/thumbnail\/yes\/autoplay\/no\/preload\/no\/no_addthis\/no\/direction\/backward\/render-playlist\/no\/custom-color\/87A93A\/\" width=\"640\" height=\"90\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Want more Cloud Therapy?\u00a0Subscribe to us on <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/cloud-therapy-aerocominc.com\/id1112772590?mt=2\" target=\"_blank\">iTunes<\/a><\/span> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stitcher.com\/podcast\/cloud-therapy-with-aerocominccom?refid=stpr\" target=\"_blank\">Stitcher<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/search?q=SIP+Trunks\" target=\"_blank\">Browse customer reviews on business SIP providers.<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><strong>Don&#8217;t quote random SIP providers. Have AeroCom show you the top 3 for your company&#8217;s size, location, and requirements.<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<script src=\"\/\/static.leadpages.net\/leadboxes\/current\/embed.js\" async=\"\" defer=\"defer\"><\/script><button style=\"background: #f26e22; border-color: #f26e22; border-radius: 4px; color: #ffffff; display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle; padding: 16px 32px; min-width: 192px; border: 1px solid #f26e22; font-size: 1rem; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: center; outline: 0; line-height: 1; cursor: pointer; -webkit-transition: background 0.3s, color 0.3s, border 0.3s; transition: background 0.3s, color 0.3s, border 0.3s; box-shadow: 0px 5px 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6);\" data-leadbox-popup=\"144249073f72a2:136337e37f46dc\">MY TOP 3<\/button> \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/p>\n<h5>See full transcript below:<\/h5>\n<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Mike: Hello, everybody. Thank you for joining us on the program today. Voice has to be, in my opinion, the one thing that IT professionals feel the least comfortable about, but is still one of the biggest things they typically handle. Now, IT professionals didn\u2019t always handle voice in my career. I started my career in 1999 working for NextLink Communications and we sold local phone lines to businesses. At that time, most of time, what I was selling, I was dealing with the CFO. That was who handled the voice stuff for the most part \u2013 the CFO and then they would have their phone vendor come in and work with them. Right around, I don\u2019t know, maybe 2000, early 2000s or so, 2002\/2003, we started to see a shift in IT departments taking charge of voice. Now, why I\u2019m bringing this up is today we have on the program someone who knows <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/our-products\/access\/voice\/sip\/\" target=\"_blank\">SIP trunking<\/a><\/span> inside and out. His name is Roger Arnett. He\u2019s a sales engineer for <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/company-profile\/fusion\" target=\"_blank\">Fusion<\/a><\/span>. Roger has had thirteen years in the telecom industry. Spent a lot of time with British Telecom, actually did some <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/our-products\/access\/site-to-site\/mpls\/\" target=\"_blank\">MPLS<\/a><\/span> design and networking, so he really knows his stuff from the engineering side, but he really knows voice. I think voice is something that everyone in IT could learn a little bit more about every day. I know you don\u2019t like doing voice, it\u2019s not fun for you, but, at the same time, I know you also don\u2019t want things like downtime, like moving to a new provider and having all your phone numbers not port over properly. There are a lot of little tricks of the trade when it comes to SIP trunking that you should really understand before you make that switch from <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/our-products\/access\/voice\/pri\/\" target=\"_blank\">PRI<\/a><\/span> to SIP for your company. A voice conversation, no matter what, changing voice service providers or technologies, can be really difficult. But, now, in the world of SIP, you throw in the complication that can happen with bad voice quality and everything goes out the door. Back in the day, I mean, gosh, just switching providers from <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/our-products\/access\/voice\/pots\/\" target=\"_blank\">analog lines<\/a><\/span> to a PRI, or something like that, all those technologies were guaranteed to work. That was even hard, and those technologies were guaranteed, but, now, when we\u2019re talking about going to SIP, there are all these little things that could go wrong. A lot of times, that service are not guaranteed to work and the problem could be on your end. Point is, today\u2019s conversation is fantastic for you. Roger Arnett is going to go over with you five best practices for implementing SIP trunking technology. I know you\u2019re going to get something out of this, so enjoy it. Before I get to that, I wanted to let you know we have another free giveaway for you. I took some time, because I know IT professionals don\u2019t know voice that well. If you do, I\u2019m sorry, but you are one of the only ones out there who does. So, I went ahead and listed the three main voice technologies on a chart that is PRI, SIP, and analog lines. I put those in three different columns and I made all these different rows that go through different functionalities like failover, like access types, like when is this technology the best fit. I give you all kinds of details on these three different voice technologies. I thought it would be a nice overview for you guys to understand what the differences are between these three, and when you should use them, and when you should not. I went ahead and made it into a PDF and we\u2019ll send it to you for free. All you have to do is text the word \u201cVOICEGUIDE\u201d to the number 44-222. Again, just text the word \u201cVOICEGUIDE\u201d to the number 44-222 and we will send you this free gift. It\u2019s yours for the taking, enjoy it, get some use out of it. I know you will. <a href=\"https:\/\/aerocominc.leadpages.co\/leadbox\/1466eec73f72a2%3A136337e37f46dc\/5632763172487168\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img src=\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/4iun1BR1P9oq26l3sURXSHWGCZzB2VrysvSbbXInnT_DI6KsPJ0TSk316HnWlOsx4I729BoWSThyL6iuI9QXvQ=s0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><script src=\"https:\/\/aerocominc.leadpages.co\/leadbox-1468011387.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\" data-leadbox=\"1466eec73f72a2:136337e37f46dc\" data-url=\"https:\/\/aerocominc.leadpages.co\/leadbox\/1466eec73f72a2%3A136337e37f46dc\/5632763172487168\/\" data-config=\"%7B%7D\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>With that being said, let\u2019s get right to this interview.<\/p>\n<p>Alright, Roger. Thanks for joining us on the program.<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Hi. My pleasure to be here. Thank you.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: No problem. Tell us a little bit about yourself personally and professionally.<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Well, my name is Roger Arnett. I\u2019m a sales engineer currently at <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/company-profile\/fusion\" target=\"_blank\">Fusion<\/a><\/span>. I\u2019ve been with Fusion almost three years now. I have about thirteen years in the industry. I\u2019ve spent about the previous eleven\/twelve years or so working at a company called British Telecom. Started there as a network engineer \u2013 spent two years doing that and then moved in to the sales engineering role. My background is mostly <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/our-products\/access\/site-to-site\/mpls\/\" target=\"_blank\">MPLS<\/a><\/span> design and sales networking sales. Since coming to Fusion, I\u2019ve gotten a lot more insight into the voice side of things and that\u2019s what I\u2019m focusing on currently today.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Awesome. Fantastic. Tell us a little bit about yourself personally.<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Okay. Well, I am 46-years-old. I live in Atlanta, Georgia. I\u2019m originally from New Jersey, born and raised in Patterson, New Jersey \u2013 spent most of my time there. I probably moved to Georgia in the last ten years. I have a wife and a daughter who is eighteen. She just graduated from high school, so that\u2019s pretty exciting.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Other than that, I going to, guess, I\u2019d probably say my hobby is playing basketball. I\u2019m a big basketball. I love basketball. I played as often as I can.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Okay. I know everyone isn\u2019t going to hear this until July, but as this is being recorded, we\u2019re about to start the NBA finals tonight. Are you going to be paying attention?<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Oh, absolutely. As a matter of fact, I am probably the biggest <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/LeBron_James\" target=\"_blank\">LeBron James<\/a><\/span> fan anyone would ever want to meet, so I\u2019ll be there.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Awesome. Tell us about that. When you say \u201cthe biggest fan\u201d anything in particular that we should know about. Do you have a giant fat head thing of LeBron James on your wall?<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Nah. I\u2019m not one of those guys. I don\u2019t even own a LeBron James jersey. But, I will mention that when he was probably a sophomore in high school\u2026 Since I live in New Jersey, <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.adidas.com\/us\/\" target=\"_blank\">Adidas<\/a><\/span> runs a summer camp there, a summer camp for the high school kids, for the top kids in the country. I went there one day just because it wasn\u2019t far from my house just to, kind of, see what was going on. There were a lot of top prospects. Then, there was this kid who was probably only fourteen or fifteen and he was a sophomore, and he was absolutely dominating the heralded players that were there. Everybody was like, \u201cWho is this guy?\u201d it turned out to be LeBron James.<\/p>\n<p>Ever since I saw him play as a high school kid, as a sophomore against seniors, I\u2019ve been a big fan.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Wow. As a sophomore, he was dominating the best seniors in the country?<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Jeez. I knew he was good, but that just shows you\u2026 It\u2019s like that\u2019s at a different level. I mean, there are some good players that are sophomores, but for them to be dominating not just seniors, but the best seniors in the country, that\u2019s why the hype about him was as big as it was when he was coming out of high school.<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Yeah. The thing is, it really wasn\u2019t hype. It was legit. It was backed up by his own core performance.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Yeah. He\u2019s absolutely amazing the way he can take over a game. It will be really interesting to see his style versus this whole three-point shootout going on with <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nba.com\/warriors\/\" target=\"_blank\">Golden State<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Should be interesting.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Yeah. Alright. Well, today, we\u2019re lucky enough to have Roger on the program to talk to us about <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/our-products\/access\/voice\/sip\/\" target=\"_blank\">SIP trunking<\/a><\/span> best practices. At this point, I\u2019ll turn it over to you, Roger and let you run with it and help educate us a little bit from an engineer standpoint, from a service provider on the best practices when it comes to implementing that big thing SIP trunking.<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Yeah. I thought I\u2019d talk a little bit about SIP trunking because here at Fusion we do a lot of SIP trunking for customers. Believe it or not, there are a lot of companies out there who still have not moved to SIP trunking. Then, there are those that have a form of SIP trunking with one carrier, but they have the need to either upgrade their service or they\u2019re not happy with their current service. So, these best practices should help give customers and individuals some idea on how to go about choosing a provider and preparing to go to SIP trunking for their telecom needs.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m just going to run through probably five quick points here and share some thoughts with you.<\/p>\n<p>The first one has to do with the need to properly evaluate the internet infrastructure that the customer has. With the way the internet is now today, it\u2019s much cheaper and almost everyone has access to high bandwidth at really cheap rates, so most customers would like to be able to do SIP trunking over their existing Internet connection. In order to be able to do that, it\u2019s important for customers to be able to know that they\u2019re using a reliable circuit, a reliable connection with low latency, and has low packet loss.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes, customers look at the speed that\u2019s advertised by their ISP and figure, \u201cWow, with all this speed that I have, my SIP trunking shouldn\u2019t be an issue,\u201d but what typically happens is sometimes the speed advertised or promised by the ISP is not actually what the customer is getting. To compound that, sometimes, the customer doesn\u2019t realize that there may be a different speed for download as opposed to upload.<\/p>\n<p>Then, we have another issue where sometimes the ISP has oversubscribed their networks and so they get poor quality of service. Even though they are experiencing the advertised upload and download speed, it ends up degrading quality for the customer experience.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some evaluation practices that customers want to keep in mind before they decide to use internet for their <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/our-products\/access\/voice\/sip\/\" target=\"_blank\">SIP trunking<\/a><\/span>:<\/p>\n<p>First, they need to find out or have a way to check the uptime and the reliability of their circuit. If they\u2019ve had the circuit for a while, they need to ask themselves: How often does this Internet connection go down? How reliable is it?<\/p>\n<p>Then, they also need to consider the fact that if it\u2019s an internet circuit, they may have other data intensive applications on the circuit. They need to look into and figure out how much of that internet bandwidth is being used for other things other than the voice traffic that they hope to use for their SIP trunking.<\/p>\n<p>In order to figure out the answers to some of those questions, they can run tests to determine the upload speed, the download speed, the latency, the packet loss, and even the jitter. Just as a reference, <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"http:\/\/beta.speedtest.net\/\" target=\"_blank\">Speedtest.net<\/a><\/span> and <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.pingtest.net\/\" target=\"_blank\">Pingtest.net<\/a><\/span> are some of the free sites where customers can log in and actually test their upload speed as opposed to their download speed.<\/p>\n<p>Then, we also recommend that they run these speed tests and latency tests during different time intervals of the day.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Oh, good point. I\u2019ve never heard that before, but it seems so logical and so simple. That\u2019s a great point.<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Yeah. Because the internet load is different at different times of the day. Maybe in the morning, it\u2019s high usage on the Internet, but maybe on the afternoon or the evening \u2013 it can vary. That will undoubtedly affect the quality of the voice services that they\u2019re going to get if they\u2019re using a SIP trunk on the internet.<\/p>\n<p>With that said, really, if you\u2019re planning on using the ISP for your SIP trunk, customers have to realize, it\u2019s really the foundation of the SIP trunk experience, right? Before they get started, they need to determine if that internet connection that they currently have is sound. One of the alternatives a customer has to resolving any issues that they find when they\u2019re running these tests might be to simply upgrade the ISP speed or upgrade their internet bandwidth, right? Or maybe they might find that their connection is really not reliable at all, so they might even have to change their internet connection, change their provider.<\/p>\n<p>Another thing a lot of customers do is they have an internet connection today and it\u2019s doing fine for their data traffic, but in order to make sure that they don\u2019t have any conflict on that circuit or on that bandwidth, they segregate their traffic. In other words, they bring in a separate internet connection just for voice, just for the SIP trunk.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: That makes sense. You mentioned analyzing their internal traffic and making sure they have enough left over for the voice traffic. Can you give us some tips on that? I know, for instance, if they have a dedicated circuit like a <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/our-products\/access\/internet\/fiber\/\" target=\"_blank\">fiber<\/a><\/span> circuit, they might be able to have some type of a bandwidth monitor online, you know, web tool provided from the provider that gives them like circuit utilization reports or something, but some of the connections, like business class cable, may not have a circuit utilization tool online. If that\u2019s the case, how would the customer go about figuring out how much bandwidth they\u2019re currently utilizing with their current applications?<\/p>\n<p>Roger: In that case, they really have to employ some packet sniffing type of device in order to be able to analyze the packet and the utilization of the actual circuit or the internet that they\u2019re getting. If they are going with a managed circuit, well, then that would negate a lot of what we\u2019re talking about here. Once they get a managed direct, point to point circuit, for example, with <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/company-profile\/fusion\" target=\"_blank\">Fusion<\/a><\/span>, they get managed router and we would put quality of service on the circuit.<\/p>\n<p>The issue really is that, kind of, leaks into my second point has to do with voice prioritization and quality of service is the fact that on the public internet, there\u2019s no way for the customer or the carrier, really, to guarantee proper bandwidth management. So, as long as you\u2019re using internet, you\u2019re always at the mercy of the internet carrier.<\/p>\n<p>One thing that can help them is if they think about the number of concurrent calls that they would have at any time, maximum, then multiply that number times roughly 74 kbits, they would get an idea how much bandwidth they require at any time if everybody was on the phone at once. If that bandwidth is just 10% of the actual bandwidth on the circuit, then they know they\u2019re in the clear for the most part.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Right. That makes sense. I think a good tip for them, too, is take a look at the number of voice lines they have today. If they\u2019re transferring to <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/our-products\/access\/voice\/sip\/\" target=\"_blank\">SIP<\/a><\/span>, like, for instance, if they have a <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/our-products\/access\/voice\/pri\/\" target=\"_blank\">PRI<\/a><\/span> and they have twenty-three concurrent call paths that\u2019s what they\u2019re maxed out at today, anyway. So, take twenty-three times, like you said, 70 or so kbits and that will give you an idea of the max bandwidth that you\u2019ll typically have.<\/p>\n<p>Because, obviously, if you have a hundred people in the office, not everybody is going to be on the phone at the same time, right?<\/p>\n<p>Roger: No. But, if you plan for a hundred, then you\u2019re ahead of the game.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Yeah, exactly. Plan for the worst-case scenario \u2013 that\u2019s a good point. Great. Continue, sorry.<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Okay. The second piece has to do with the prioritization. When customers use internet, it\u2019s important to know that the bi-directional quality of service is not available over the public internet like I mentioned before. So, proper bandwidth management, making sure they have enough speed both up and down is critical, right?<\/p>\n<p>What some people do is they would install a router with <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Traffic_shaping\" target=\"_blank\">traffic shaping<\/a><\/span> capabilities, right? A lot of today\u2019s routers have voice prioritization built in, but proper bandwidth planning is always preferential to the traffic shaping. If it\u2019s an unmanaged circuit, in other words, a public internet circuit, that router will really only be able to prioritize traffic as it leaves the router as opposed to as it comes into the router or southbound. So, making sure there\u2019s enough bandwidth on the internet circuit is of prime importance.<\/p>\n<p>Conversely, when a customer or an individual, or a company wants to use a managed connection, maybe a medium or a large customer, these individuals will be better off getting a managed circuit. Once they get that, those can be delivered as a <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/our-products\/access\/internet\/t1\/\" target=\"_blank\">T1<\/a><\/span> or a cross-connect <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/our-products\/access\/internet\/fiber\/\" target=\"_blank\">metro ethernet<\/a><\/span>, the possibilities are endless. In that case, they would be able to be guaranteed quality of service. So, regardless of the bandwidth on the circuit, the voice traffic would always get priority. That\u2019s another way some customers or companies who are concerned about the quality of their voice can get around leaving it to chance. They can get a managed circuit, dedicated circuit, not public internet, at the end of that circuit. They would get a managed CPE or a router provided by their carrier. That carrier would now have the ability and the responsibility, obviously, to provide full QoS on their voice traffic.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Great. So, if a customer gets a dedicated circuit from their SIP provider and they have a voice quality issue, and they call their provider, is there any way the provider could say, like, \u201cHey, it\u2019s still on your end\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>Roger: No, because now the responsibility is 100% on the carrier, right?<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Awesome.<\/p>\n<p>Roger: And the carrier will be responsible. Obviously, the carrier will only be responsible up to the customer facing LAN handoff of that CPE device. There could be a cabling issue beyond that. Obviously, the carrier wouldn\u2019t be responsible for that, but up to the router, they should be able to improve and manage that quality of service.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Fantastic. Awesome. So, that\u2019s point number two. Point number one was properly evaluate the internet infrastructure, number two is if you have a larger deployment of SIP, consider getting a dedicated circuit from the same provider that\u2019s giving you the SIP service to provide you a managed SIP service over a dedicated circuit.<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Right. Exactly.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Okay, great. What\u2019s the third point?<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Now, the third point is also an important one. It has to do with the <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Business_telephone_system\" target=\"_blank\">PBX<\/a><\/span>. Obviously, if they\u2019re getting a SIP trunk, they\u2019re going to be using a PBX. We need to make sure there\u2019s proper PBX interoperability between the SIP trunk provider and that particular PBX.<\/p>\n<p>There are endless and countless numbers of PBXs on the market. If the customer wants to feel confident that this SIP trunk that they\u2019re purchasing from a provider is going to work with their PBX, they need to confirm or try and make sure that that PBX model and make had been certified by the carrier, right? There\u2019s nothing really more frustrating than learning about these features that you have on your PBX, but they won\u2019t work with that particular SIP provider. There are a number of OEM tests and certifications, and field certifications with most of today\u2019s commonly used PBXs and phone systems. That homework or research should really be done upfront, not after the fact.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Are most of the major PBX manufacturers \u201ccertified\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Well, that depends on the SIP trunk provider. It\u2019s up to the SIP trunk provider to certify these PBXs on their system. For example, at Fusion we have a list, it\u2019s available on our website, where customers can come in and look up their specific PBX and see whether or not it has been certified on the Fusion platform. In addition to that, they\u2019ll also find documentation that points them in the right direction or gives them a starting point of being able to configure their PBX to work with our SIP trunking platform.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll also mention, in addition to that, a lot of carriers, including Fusion, also offer the ability to do a demo SIP trunk. In other words, they will provide the customer, before signing a contract, the ability to set up a SIP trunk over the internet and test it for a period of up to two weeks. If their PBX is not currently listed on our website, they can use that demo SIP trunk program to certify and confirm that there is PBX interoperability. They can test all their features and everything for free beforehand.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: That\u2019s a great way to go, I think. Nothing like testing it upfront. Back in the day when we were selling PRIs there was no such thing as testing a PRI service before you install that provider. It was all or nothing. Once you\u2019re in, you\u2019re in.<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Make it work, yup.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Yeah. Great.<\/p>\n<p>Roger: The fourth point has to do with the porting of the telephone numbers. Anybody who\u2019s ever had to migrate one SIP trunk provider to another SIP trunk provider, they know what type of a headache that can be. So, timely porting of the numbers and then communication with the carrier on the port cutover, those are two of the main challenges within the industry, right?<\/p>\n<p>The number porting process really requires that the customer gets a release from the carrier for those <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Direct_inward_dial\" target=\"_blank\">DIDs<\/a><\/span>. Each carrier that a customer needs to port from is different. They can all have different lead times, different variances in how they do it. To improve the experience related to porting numbers from one provider to another, there are a few things that can be done.<\/p>\n<p>Number one, the customer and the provider need to set a target date together, right? A target date of when the numbers will be ported or how long it\u2019s going to take. Then, they need to be able to communicate or the customer needs to communicate to the carrier what\u2019s the drop dead date that they need this to be done, right? Then, they can work with the carrier to determine whether or not that time falls with the lead times that the carriers typically give.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to that, customers or companies should also use a separate letter of authorization for each physical location for which numbers are being ported. What happens a lot of times is the customer may have multiple locations. Either they have a single SIP trunk at one location and they route all their traffic back to that one or they just have multiple locations and each location has their own SIP trunk. What happens with the porting, sometimes, is that the numbers that have been assigned to specific locations and then they put all that paperwork into one document, right? And it becomes confusion. So, we recommend that there\u2019s always a separate <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Letter_of_Agency\" target=\"_blank\">letter of authorization<\/a><\/span> for each physical location that a customer or a company has when the numbers are being ported.<\/p>\n<p>Then, we also would like to make sure that customers also use a separate letter of authorization for each separate carrier that they\u2019re porting from. In some instances, your company may have some DIDs from one carrier and some DIDs from another carrier, well, it makes sense, logically, then that they would create a letter of authorization, separate, for each carrier so that all the numbers end up getting ported to the new carrier.<\/p>\n<p>So, porting of the numbers, it\u2019s an important piece of doing any type of SIP trunk migration, but the lead time to get this done can always be shortened if there are accurate number porting forms and good communication between the customer and the carrier.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: That\u2019s a great point, Roger. What would you say is the minimum amount of lead time that a customer should allow for the porting to take place from the time they submit the signed letter of authorization for each location to the time the actual numbers get ported?<\/p>\n<p>Roger: If I were a customer with the experience that I have now, I would not plan on having it done on anything short of four weeks. In many cases, it can happen sooner than that, but for comfort\u2019s sake, I would plan for at least four weeks out, minimum.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: I think that\u2019s a good bet. I think, jeez, from my experience it almost seems like I would even go on like eight weeks. Some of these providers, I\u2019m like\u2026 Especially if you\u2019re with a smaller service provider, currently, and you\u2019re trying to port to a different service provider, some of them it\u2019s a really a mom and pop process. They can reject that port for a number of reasons. If it gets rejected, it\u2019s, kind of, like, you start from scratch, but I think that\u2019s really good advice to do it separate letter of authorization or LOA for each site and each carrier. It\u2019s a pain in the neck, but that\u2019s some great advice that I think if people follow it, it really sets them up for a successful port.<\/p>\n<p>Porting, I think, could be the bane of switching voice providers to any IT professional. It could be really painful if not done correctly. If done correctly, it could actually go pretty quick and smooth. I think that\u2019s some great advice to do it properly.<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Absolutely. Agreed. The final thing that I would mention as a best practice when it comes to implementing SIP trunking or doing any type of migration would be to have a test plan. Even with everything that we talked about so far, there is always the possibility that there might be an issue, especially if you\u2019re using an internet circuit. Customers should always try to have a way or a plan to test that SIP trunk before they actually port over the numbers, right?<\/p>\n<p>Now, I mentioned that it\u2019s probably good if you use a provider that allows you to do a demo SIP trunk as Fusion does. If that\u2019s not the case, if you\u2019re not able to do that, another option to test the SIP trunk that works out very nicely for a lot of customers is the ability to go in to their PBX and configure their PBX to do outbound only calls over that new SIP trunk.<\/p>\n<p>So, they wouldn\u2019t migrate the inbound, they wouldn\u2019t do any changing or porting of numbers on inbound, but they would configure their PBX to allow outbound calls, right? If they did that, they can test outbound calling while their inbound calls are still using their existing SIP trunk, right? Once they test the outbound and they\u2019re satisfied with it, then they can proceed with porting over the inbound ID or any toll-free service that they might have. That\u2019s one extra layer of testing or safety that a customer can use in order to verify or be confident that once we port these numbers over, our SIP trunk with this new provider is going to be fully functional.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Great tip. I think that outbound testing is a great idea. As simple as it sounds, how many customers, actually, do you think do that?<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Yeah, not many.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Not many. It\u2019s like they just, kind of, go all or nothing because it\u2019s almost like the whole process has been, you know, just a little bit confusing and they just want to get it over with. But, gosh, if you just take that little extra attention to detail and do outbound testing first, man, the issues you could avoid. Just like you said on the internal side, there could definitely be some things going on in your network that could be preventing the SIP voice quality from being exactly what you want. You could be having dropped calls or one-way media issues, or things like that. Gosh, you\u2019d avoid that whole issue if you just did some outbound calling first.<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Well, fantastic, Roger. That was a great presentation. Those are five really good best practices that, I think, all of our listeners can at least get a couple of good takeaways from if they\u2019re looking to transfer over to SIP. I appreciate you sharing that with us.<\/p>\n<p>Roger: My pleasure. Thanks for the opportunity, Mike.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: No problem. So, switching gears a little bit, I\u2019d like to have some fun. Like I ask everybody, tell us about the most interesting, or funny, or strangest thing you\u2019ve ever seen take place at work?<\/p>\n<p>Roger: That is a tough one, Mike. I guess I\u2019d probably have to go with the funniest thing. The funniest thing was probably\u2026 In my previous job, we have a lot of practical jokesters and pranksters in the office. One of their regular pranks was if someone would ever get up and walk away from their desk without locking their laptop or locking their computer, these guys would jump on there, on the laptop and send emails from a certain person\u2019s terminal to some other unsuspecting individual within the company \u2013 most of the time right in the same floor, maybe just a few cubicles away. I won\u2019t get into what the content of some of those emails were, but let\u2019s just say that once it all came out in and to watch, it was pretty funny.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Oh, that. I would never want that done to me, but I would love to be an observer of that. That would be great.<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Yeah. Sometimes , you\u2019re like, you knew it was happening. As soon a person would get up from their desk you, kind of, saw it. It was just a matter of watching it play out, so that was pretty funny. But, the lesson learned from that is always lock your computer when you walk away from it.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Especially now after people have heard this podcast. It\u2019s funny. Before you said that I had never seen anybody do that. Of course, I\u2019ve, you know, I haven\u2019t worked in a large company for thirteen years, so maybe it just hadn\u2019t caught on to us yet when I was there. Because whenever anybody talked about locking up their computer, I was thinking theft or something like somebody would steal someone\u2019s computer as a practical joke, but sending out emails is \u2013 that\u2019s great. That\u2019s a good one. I would love to see that person\u2019s face who received the email, the strange email like, \u201cWhat in the world is this person sending me?\u201d oh, that\u2019s good. Thanks for the laugh.<\/p>\n<p>Roger: You\u2019re welcome.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Alright. Now that you\u2019ve established a ton of credibility with, obviously, showing us, you know, you\u2019ve been around voice a long time and, you know, MPLS, obviously, and given us a lot of good pointers, tell us a little bit about the company you\u2019re working at today \u2013 <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/company-profile\/fusion\">Fusion<\/a><\/span>. Tell us who Fusion is and what you guys are up to these days.<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Okay. Fusion is a leading provider in the industry of cloud solutions from, you know, small to medium and large businesses. We have a lot of <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fortune_500\" target=\"_blank\">Fortune 500<\/a><\/span> companies in our portfolio. Really, Fusion is the industry single source for what we call &#8220;<span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/product\/cloud\/\" target=\"_blank\">the cloud<\/a><\/span>,\u201d right?<\/p>\n<p>Everybody is talking about the cloud nowadays and Fusion is a leader when it comes to cloud. We have an advanced proprietary cloud service platform which enables the integration of solutions in the cloud including cloud communications like SIP trunking, and different voice platforms that we offer, as well as cloud connectivity which has to do with <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/our-products\/access\/site-to-site\/mpls\/\" target=\"_blank\">MPLS<\/a><\/span> in setting up network connectivity for companies and customers that have multiple locations, also cloud computing which entails the hosting side of the business where we can set up different cloud computing solutions for customers that require that.<\/p>\n<p>The beauty of what Fusion does is that we can put all of these things together and offer one comprehensive solution to our customers. They don\u2019t have to go to someone else for their voice. They don\u2019t have to go with someone else for their cloud computing. If they need an MPLS network or network creativity, they don\u2019t have to go to three or four different providers \u2013 they can do it all with Fusion. It\u2019s innovative, it\u2019s a proven cloud solutions, we lower our customer\u2019s cost of ownership, and we also deliver new levels of security, flexibility, scalability, and speed of deployment. So, really, Fusion, that\u2019s what we\u2019re all about.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Fantastic. Thanks for the overview. Are there certain geographic territories that you guys service only or do you guys service all throughout the United States or worldwide?<\/p>\n<p>Roger: All throughout the United States, Canada. We\u2019re also doing quite a bit of business in certain countries outsides of the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Oh, fantastic. Well, great. Thanks, Roger. I appreciate you being in the program. I know, obviously, from the value that I got from your best practices that you did some homework in preparing all that. I really appreciate you doing that for our listeners and I really appreciate you taking the time to be in our program.<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Thank you, Mike. I appreciate the opportunity and thanks for your time as well.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Alright. Go Cavs tonight, huh?<\/p>\n<p>Roger: Absolutely, man.<\/p>\n<p>Mike: Now, those were some good SIP tips, weren\u2019t day? Especially if you haven\u2019t had that much experience with voice, those are some basic things that everybody can learn a little bit from that and, hopefully, will make your next SIP trunking install go a little bit better and help you avoid that one glitch that will make your boss look at you and say, \u201cCould we have prepared a little bit better for this?\u201d hopefully, that\u2019s beneficial for you guys.<\/p>\n<p>A little admission here. I\u2019m recording this outro so to speak after the NBA finals, so the Cavs actually won. But, I\u2019m going to admit that, you know, when I was talking to Roger in this interview and it was the beginning of Game 1, I, kind of, didn\u2019t really care who won either way, but I thought it was, kind of, cool if the Cavs did win because they\u2019ve never won an NBA championship, but in my mind, I thought they had no chance. So, I was being nice to Roger, but I, honestly, think they had no chance especially after the first two games when they lost, then I really thought they had no chance. But, we just saw them win a championship last weekend, so nice little capture of history there on that interview.<\/p>\n<p>Hope you guys enjoyed it. Before I go, I wanted, again, to remind you about the free giveaway.<\/p>\n<p>I made this great, little comparison chart of PRI, SIP, and analog lines that compares how these technologies differ when it comes to things like your ability to have failover, your ability to have phone numbers, what type of access types they come in like T1 or things like that. Do they require electricity? When are they a best fit? When are they not such a good fit? Things like that.<\/p>\n<p>I took a couple of hours to make this great little chart for you guys that aren\u2019t familiar with voice that well, which I know there\u2019s a lot of you out there. I\u2019ll give it to you for free. All you have to do is text the word \u201cVOICEGUIDE\u201d to the number 44-222 and it\u2019s free for all of our listeners just as a gift from us to you as a thank you for listening to our program. Again, just text the word \u201cVOICEGUIDE\u201d to the number 44-222 and we will send you that free comparison chart of all the different major voice technologies.<\/p>\n<p>Hope you enjoyed the program and I will catch you next time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Long-time voice and data engineer and current sales engineer for Fusion, Roger Arnett shares 5 best practices for installing\u00a0SIP trunking. Roger has engineered hundreds of SIP installations and has gathered a vast amount of wisdom on this topic. From how<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/cloud-therapy-ep-011-sip-trunking-installation-best-practices-with-roger-arnett\/\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\">Read more &#8250;<\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9533,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[371],"tags":[215,446,445,422,429,629,561,602,428,381,383,423,628,539,631,630,391],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9532"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}