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© Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
SIP Trunking Is Key to Accelerating Unified Communications Deployments
by Zeus Kerravala, Senior Vice President | February 2009
This custom publication has been sponsored by Sprint and Nortel.
Executive Summary
Companies today are undergoing a significant transformation to a more global Anywhere Enterprise™. Unified communications (UC) is a crucial
component in this evolution and organizations look to collaborate better with an extended enterprise (see Exhibit 1 on the next page). UC
has the power to help companies lower the overall cost of communications, bring worker productivity to new levels, enhance corporate green
initiatives and completely redefine the way we work by becoming part of our application infrastructure.
However, the deployment of UC is not without its challenges. Too often, organizations go down the path of deploying new technology with old
technology principles in mind and UC is no different. Many of the early adopter deployments of VoIP and UC were designed exactly the same as
the old systems, severely limiting the overall value of UC, which is a highly flexible, IP-based solution.
Migrating from traditional trunk lines to SIP trunking is a very simple, cost-effective change to open doors to other advanced services that can
enhance a UC deployment. SIP trunking will allow companies to recognize the following benefits:
•Dramaticallylowertheoverallcostofcommunications
•ExtendsUCtosoftware-as-a-service(SaaS)applicationsandothercloud-basedoptions
•AcceleratesUCdeploymentsthroughthesimplificationofnetworkdesign
•EasiermigrationtootheradvancedservicessuchasmobileintegrationandMPLSnetworks
This report introduces the reader to UC, outlines the benefits of UC and highlights some of the challenges in deployment. The report also
introduces the reader to SIP trunking and how it can play a key role in accelerating the deployment of UC as well as provides recommendations
on how to evaluate SIP trunking providers and some thoughts for initial deployment.
© Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.2
SIP Trunking Is Key to Accelerating Unified Communications Deployments
Exhibit 1. Communications in the Anywhere EnterpriseSource: Yankee Group, 2009
Table of Contents I. Introduction 3
Unified Communications Defined 3
II. The Business Benefits of Unified Communications 4
LowerTotalCostofOwnership 5
Increased Worker Productivity 6
UC Is Creating Communications-Enabled Business Processes 6
III. Adoption of Unified Communications 7
IV.OverviewofSIPTrunking 9
Understanding SIP Trunking 9
What to Consider in a Solutions Provider 9
V. Sprint Nextel + Microsoft + Nortel = A Case Study in Success 10
Benefits to Sprint 11
VI. Conclusions and Recommendations 12
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3© Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
February 2009
I. Introduction
Organizationshavetorndowntheircorporatewallsandare
moving toward Yankee Group’s vision of becoming an Anywhere
Enterprise. That is a global company that is networked together and
comprises a variety of constituents. Employees, partners, suppliers
and customers are all important components of an Anywhere
Enterprise for virtually anytime, virtually anywhere access to people
and information. And their need to communicate faster and more
collaboratively over a variety of devices or mediums is greater than ever.
Overtime,organizationshavedeployedamyriadofcommunications
tools and devices to help people communicate better with
one another. These include telephony systems, conferencing,
collaboration tools and e-mail. Although these devices address the
need for faster communications, few of them are linked together.
This creates a manageability headache for the worker and prohibits
the organization from reaching its full potential.
To achieve their full potential, organizations require the ability to
communicate and collaborate better. Competitive advantage is
no longer about any single person or core capability. The entire
extended enterprise and the ability of each of its constituents to
communicate and collaborate with other in real time forms the
basis of competitive advantage today. This presents a challenge for
workers to reach more people in shorter periods of time with the
rightinformationattheirfingertips.Organizationshaveturnedto
unified communications (UC) as a method of meeting this challenge.
Those UC enterprise customers with carriers who have deployed IP
multimedia subsystems (IMS) services will find additional savings in
call routing and PSTN access reduction. Also, UC is now the vehicle
upon which integrated wireless solutions can attach. Up to this
point, wireless integration was often a stand-alone and sometimes
expensive adjunct to an IP PBX.
Unified Communications Defined
UC brings all of a company’s communications and collaborative
tools together. It is the convergence of all forms of audio, video,
Web and desktop communications that is built on an IP network
that breaks down all distance, time and media barriers. This enables
people to communicate with each other virtually anywhere,
any time, over any device. UC improves the manageability and
effectiveness of the ecosystem and makes the enterprise more
responsive and agile, which enables it to ultimately gain an advantage
over the competition.
UC consists of the following communications tools:
IP telephony/VoIP:• VoIP enables companies to use the
corporate data network for phone calls rather than having
a dedicated network just for telephone service. Historically,
VoIP was considered by many organizations as the foundation
of UC. However, during the past year presence and desktop
integration have been elevated to being critical to the success
of UC.
Presence:• This is the ability for users to understand another
user’s availability and willingness to communicate over a
variety of devices. This is common today for instant messaging
applications, but it will quickly be used to understand a user’s
status on phones, wireless devices, video conferencing and
other collaborative tools. Additionally, presence can be
extended to objects such as alarm systems, medical devices
and even documents.
Mobile client:• Enterprise mobility is rapidly becoming a key
driver for UC. A mobile client will be what mobilizes a UC
platform and puts the desktop in the hands of mobile users,
which makes up 40 percent of the workforce. The holy grail
of mobility will be when a worker can seamlessly access UC
applications anytime, on any device.
Fixed-mobile convergence (FMC):• FMC enables a worker
to seamlessly move calls between the desktop and the mobile
phone for voice call continuity. As the mobile workforce
grows, the ability to provide mobile integration will become a
key decision point for organizations evaluating UC solutions.
Integrated multimedia conferencing:• Conferencing
applications have existed for a number of years, but only
recently have the solutions become integrated into UC
solutions. Within the Yankee Group taxonomy, the following
services are included:
Video conferencing:• Longknownasanice-to-have,video
has become one of the main applications driving UC
deployments. Quality and ease of use have improved dramatically
allowing more users to take advantage of video communications.
© Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.4
SIP Trunking Is Key to Accelerating Unified Communications Deployments
Web conferencing:• This form of conferencing has become
popular within the last five years, due largely in part to ease
of use and accessibility. Audio and Web conferencing have
been the most widely adopted forms of converged conferencing.
Audio conferencing:• The more mature form of conferencing,
audio conferencing through the use of bridge lines is still the
most widely adopted form of conferencing. However, as this
space evolves, we will see audio become more integrated
into other forms of conferencing. Deploying an audio
conferencing system that is integrated into a UC solution
instead of using a telco-based bridge service has been one of
the most widely adopted components of UC. Yankee Group
research has seen companies recoup the investment in as
little as six months by shedding expensive bridge services.
IP network:• An IP network is required to deliver the
information and communications to users. IP is the only
protocol that is scalable and simple enough to make the
vision of UC a reality; it will be the common network for
the deployment of all communications systems. Although IP
is a dynamic, scalable technology it does require on going
optimization. Management of a network life cycle is critical
now as more applications are running on the network.
II. The Business Benefits of Unified Communications
UC is valuable on many levels. It is one of the few technologies that
can fulfill on the promise of any IT project. Specifically, UC can:
Lowertotalcostofownership•
Increase worker productivity •
Create new efficient business processes •
Improve customer satisfaction •
Each of these is described in greater detail further in this section.
Overtime,thefocusofthevaluepropositionhaschanged.Afew
years ago the primary driver for VoIP and UC revolved around cost
savings. Though cost savings still remains a big part of the decision
to move to UC, especially in a tough economic climate like we
have today, the real potential is as a foundation for fundamentally
changing business and building long-term competitive advantage
(see Exhibit 2).
As described earlier, organizations will get value from UC in the
following ways.
Exhibit 2. The All-Around Value of UCSource: Yankee Group, 2009
TCOBenefits
IT Process Improvement
Streamline Business Processes
Competitive Advantage
Enterprise Audio Conferencing
Instant Messaging
Voice over IP
UnifiedMessaging
Unified Communications
5© Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
February 2009
LowerTotalCostofOwnership
Overtheyears,companieshaveaddedtotheportfolioof
corporate communications by deploying silo applications that
address one specific method of communicating. The traditional
desk phone, e-mail platform, mobile phone, video system and
other communications tools provide great value, but each of these
systems exists on its own and does not interoperate with any
othercorporateapplication.Obviously,havingtomanageeach
one of these tools discretely drives up the cost of the tool because
of redundant networks and hardware, separate management
tools and expensive support contracts for maintenance, and
administration of the voice systems.
Because of this, cost savings remains the No. 1 driver for UC
rollouts (see Exhibit 3).
TheYankeeGroupAnywhereEnterprise—Large:2008U.S.Fixed-
Mobile Convergence/IP Communications Survey revealed that 41
percent of respondents cited lower costs as the No. 1 reason to
deploy UC. The main methods of lowering costs using UC are
the following:
Reduction of network costs: • Historically, when
organizations deploy voice technology it is done on a node-
by-node basis. This means each office or branch locations
needs its own PBX equipment as well as its own trunk to
the public switch telephone network (PSTN), no matter
how small the office is. This can be a terribly expensive way
to deploy communications to an organization with multiple
offices. IP-based communications, such as UC, allows the
services to be deployed centrally in the corporate data
center and then distributed over the companies private
WAN allowing for reduced cost and greater efficiency of the
infrastructure. Additionally, the ability to repurpose and reuse
existing networks adds to the costs savings as well.
Lower maintenance costs: • PBX maintenance is typically
very expensive and comprises many factors. Maintaining
the hardware itself normally requires periodic upgrades,
which often require a field technician to perform. Also, user
management is often done by the PBX vendor or a local
interconnect. Unlike a PC or IP phone, a user cannot simply
pick up the phone and move it to a new location and have it
work. A third party must come in and reconfigure the PBX
when a user moves, is added or removed from the system. In
an IP environment, most of the maintenance costs go away.
In fact, with a software-based approach even the hardware
maintenance would be completely eliminated.Exhibit 3. UC Deployment Drivers Source: Yankee Group Anywhere Enterprise—Large: 2008 US Fixed-Mobile Convergence/IP Communications Survey
What are the top three reasons why you would implement new mobility and IP communications technologies and services?
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
LowerCosts
Provide Access to Information
Improve Customer Relationship
Modernize Communication Systems
Better Manage Communication Services
Increase Collaboration
Improve Customer Service
Support Remote Workers
Enhance Security
Enable More Remote Workers
Create/Automate New Business Processes
ImproveWork/LifeBalance
No Near-Term Plans to Implement
n=344Percent of Respondents
41
27
27
26
25
24
22
22
16
16
14
11
3
© Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.6
SIP Trunking Is Key to Accelerating Unified Communications Deployments
Reduced long-distance calls:• In a typical deployment
model of traditional communications, most companies spent
a fortune in long-distance calls between offices for employee-
to-employee communications. An IP-based system deployed
over a corporate WAN makes these on-net calls essentially
free. Aside from the monthly fees for the core services, these
calls do not incur any additional costs since the corporate
WAN is usually a fixed recurring cost for the bandwidth and
voice calls are treated as data similar to any other data need.
Additionally, when making a call to a person off the network,
companies can design the system to automatically route the
call from the cheapest possible location. For example, if a
US based worker were placing a call to a UK number, the
call would traverse the private corporate network to the
company’s UK office where it would be routed as a local call.
Yankee Group studies have seen companies reduce long-
distance costs significantly by using VoIP. An IT manager from
a large global law firm stated, “We began our VoIP rollout last
year and we saw about a 70 percent reduction in long-distance
toll charges. Instead of using the PSTN for calls, the calls have
been replaced with a combination of VoIP calls and instant
messenger.”
These are the three main categories of cost savings for companies
who choose to deploy UC. Depending on how the deploying
organization wants to change the way people work, there are
other cost savings to be gained such as reduction in office space
by allowing more workers to telecommute, more efficient use of
IT time or even a reduction in IT staff and savings related to green
initiatives. However, even the most conservative of companies will
find significant cost savings through the deployment of UC.
Increased Worker Productivity
As mentioned earlier, the historical focus of UC was to help
companies reduce the overall cost of communications. During the
past few years though, the value proposition for UC has shifted to
increasing worker productivity. Much of this is through being able
to make finding and communicating with someone a much simpler
task by having a single interface to all of a worker’s communications
tools. In today’s environment, it’s common for a worker to have a
mobile phone, e-mail application, multiple instant messaging clients,
desk phone, home office phone and other communications tools
such as audio or Web conferencing. Someone trying to locate
this person would often have no idea which is the best way to
reach this worker and leaves multiple messages for the worker
on multiple systems. The worker then must retrieve information
from all of these systems, which can waste a significant amount of
time. Most workers waste a huge amount of time trying to manage
information to and from other workers. A series of one-on-one
interviews with employees that spend more than 20 percent of
their time away from their primary workplace revealed that mobile
workers spend about 25 percent of their time simply retrieving
or leaving information using the various communications tools—a
huge time waster that most workers cannot afford. UC creates
a single interface into all of a worker’s communications tools and
users can set preference to inform others which is the best way to
communicate with them.
Overall,UCcanhelpworkersbemoreproductivebyreducingthe
net amount of “human latency” involved in communicating with
each other.
UC Is Creating Communications-Enabled Business Processes
Overtime,UCcomponentswillbeembeddedintoapplications
rather than being stand-alone applications. This will give rise to
a new way of working utilizing communications-enabled business
processes (CEBP) to provide increased customer satisfaction.
A CEBP is a process in which much of the communications flow
has been optimized or fully automated removing all of the human
latency that exists today for immediate access to resolve customer
issues. For example, in a typical hospital environment a patient
condition may trigger an alarm. A clinician sitting at a central
monitoring station would then see the alarm and look through
some papers that would indicate who the responsible doctor or
nurse is. Then that doctor or nurse would need to be located or
paged to respond to the issue. If the person is not available then
the individual who is at the monitoring station would then need to
manually look through a skills database to identify who the best
individuals are, determine which ones are available and then begin
theprocessalloveragain.Obviously,thiskindofhumandelayina
hospital could have life-or-death consequences.
7© Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
February 2009
Using a CEBP built on UC, the monitoring system would
automatically trigger an alert that is sent to a nurse’s or doctor’s
mobile handheld devices. If there is no response in a defined period
of time, the system would look through the skills database and
identify the best person whose presence status is set to “available”
and then contact that individual with a text message, automated
voice message, instant message, e-mail or any other medium that is
set as a preference. In this particular example there was no human
interaction needed to find and engage the best person, meaning the
patient gets the best possible care in as short a time as possible.
Organizationsthatarewillingtostreamlineorcreatenew
business process with UC at the center will find that workers can
reach new levels of productivity by having faster access to more
information and more people. CEBPs not only boost individual
employee productivity, but also streamline an entire organization’s
day-to-day operations.
III. Adoption of Unified Communications
Despite the excitement of UC, adoption remains spotty for a
variety of reasons. Many companies perceive UC to be the next
step after VoIP, which means that the UC rollout will come after
VoIP.TheYankeeGroupAnywhereEnterprise—Large:2008U.S.
Fixed-Mobile Convergence/IP Communications Survey showed that
whileapproximately85percentoforganizationshaveVoIPdeployed
somewhere in the organization, only about 10 percent have it
deployed across the organization. This means UC is still to come for
many companies. Companies heading down this path should actually
rethink this decision and make VoIP part of the UC rollout instead
of a separate implementation.
Another reason why UC adoption has been slow to date is that
the definition of UC is very broad so almost all companies have
deployed one or more of the components of UC without having
a formal UC rollout under way. Exhibit 4 shows that the majority
of applications that would fall under the UC umbrella are related
to conferencing. In-house audio, Web and room-based video
conferencing all show very high penetration rates, and unified
messaging also shows a deployment of more than half the install base.
Exhibit 4. UC Adoption Current Revolves Around ConferencingSource: Yankee Group Anywhere Enterprise—Large: 2008 U.S. Fixed-Mobile Convergence/IP Communications Survey
Which of the following UC applications have you deployed?
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Room-Based Video Conferencing
UnifiedMessaging(OneInboxforE-Mail,VoiceMail,Fax,etc.)
Corporate Instant Messenger
Telecommuter SolutionsVoIP Applications Running on an IP Phone
(e.g., a Trader’s Application in the Financial Services)
Soft Phones (PC-Based Phones)
Desktop Video Conferencing
Location-BasedServices
Mobile Phone IntegrationDesktop Application with Voice or Communications Integrated into It
TelepresenceOtherPresence-BasedApplications
(OtherthanIM)Speech Recognition Applications
n=145
In-House Audio Conferencing
Web Conferencing
Percent of Respondents
59
53
48
47
44
41
41
40
38
32
28
23
19
74
71
© Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.8
SIP Trunking Is Key to Accelerating Unified Communications Deployments
Questionsrelatedtototalcostofownership(TCO)andreturn
oninvestment(ROI)arealsoreasonsthatcompanieshaven’t
aggressively rolled out UC because the value for both cost savings
and increased productivity have been hard to quantify. Some of
the cost savings are relatively easy to calculate if corporations
understand the calling patterns of the worker, understand how
workers collaborate and have kept good records of mobile usage.
However, without a solid baseline, few companies have the ability
to calculate the overall costs savings. The same can be true for
productivity benefits. Without a good understanding of how
workers use communications as part of their everyday job, it’s
difficult to help those workers alter current business process or
even augment it with UC to help boost productivity. However, more
case studies and best practices are being developed every day, and
we believe that within the next 24 months companies deploying UC
will gain a significant advantage over competition. Not deploying UC
will create much greater risk to the organization than any risk or
cost associate with deploying it.
Onefinalreasonthatorganizationshavenotaggressivelyrolledout
UC is the complexity of the overall deployment. VoIP and UC aren’t
difficult to deploy if the right network services are in place and
determining ahead of time which services a company would want to
support prior to the deployment of UC. The reasons deployments
can get complex is that often many of the decisions around what
to do with the network, how to support mobile workers and
how to manage quality are all made after production deployment.
Therefore, any changes need to be made in a “live” environment—a
risky endeavor. Network managers should keep two main points in
mind when designing a network to support VoIP and UC.
A holistic approach to the network is required.• That
means the network manager needs to consider not only
thelocal-areanetwork(LAN),butalsothechoiceofWAN
protocols, the last mile that is used to connect to the local
phone system to the corporate network
Wireless integration need to be considered prior to •
deployment and not be an afterthought. With more
and more workers becoming mobile, integration with mobile
phones will be one of the keys to a successful deployment.
Exhibit 5 shows that respondents believed that mobile phone
integration will be one of the top three applications that create
the biggest productivity boost. Exhibit 5. Productivity Benefits of UCSource: Yankee Group Anywhere Enterprise—Large: 2008 U.S. Fixed-Mobile Convergence/IP Communications Survey
Whichofthefollowingunifiedcommunicationsapplicationsdoyou feel will provide the most productivity improvement?
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Room-Based Video Conferencing
UnifiedMessaging(OneInboxforE-Mail,VoiceMail,Fax,etc.)
Corporate Instant Messenger
Telecommuter Solutions
VoIP Applications Running on an IP Phone(e.g., a Trader’s Application in the Financial Services)
Soft Phones (PC-Based Phones)
In-House Audio Conferencing
Location-BasedServices
Mobile Phone Integration
Desktop Application with Voice or Communications Integrated into it
TelepresenceOtherPresence-BasedApplications
(OtherthanIM)
Speech Recognition Applications
n=344
Desktop Video Conferencing
Percent of Respondents
24
24
18
18
18
15
15
11
11
10
8
8
5
30
9© Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
February 2009
To simplify the deployment of UC, maximize value and increase
adoption, network managers should consider Session Initiation
Protocol (SIP) trunking as a key to connecting to the advanced
network services needed to have a successful implementation
IV.OverviewofSIPTrunking
SIP trunking services from network operators have been
commercially available on the market since 2005, but deployments
have been limited for a couple of reasons. First, the overall
awareness of SIP trunking is relatively low. Yankee Group
interviewed 20 network managers on an individual basis during the
past year and only three of them fully understood what SIP trunking
is and how it works. Second, the incumbent network operators
have been very passive in articulating the value proposition of SIP
trunking to customers since the consolidation of multiple PSTN
trunks down to one SIP trunk greatly threatens to cannibalize the
legacy TDM revenue stream of the incumbent operators.
OncenetworkmanagersfullyunderstandwhatSIPtrunkingis
and the value it provides, connecting over this method will be one
of the easiest decisions involved in the deployment. However,
understanding SIP trunking is the first step in overcoming this barrier.
Understanding SIP Trunking
In traditional telephony, the local phone operator would deliver
telephony services over a wire, or a “trunk,” that would connect
the corporate PBX to the PSTN. This physical trunk made up of
multiple channels would carry the phone calls from the corporation
to the PSTN allowing the company to have phone service. SIP
trunking allows companies to replace these physical cables with
“virtual SIP trunks” that are deployed over a data connection. This
could be a dedicated line, a shared connection with a data service or
companies can even use the Internet for connectivity.
SIP trunking can deliver much more value to a company than a
traditional PSTN trunk. First, there’s no real limit to the number of
user voice sessions that can be carried over a SIP trunk (other than
bandwidth) where a traditional PSTN trunk limited the number of
calls to the number of channels available (typically 24 per trunk).
SIP trunking scales by bandwidth. Need more calls to go through?
Increase the bandwidth of the connection instead of deploying
another physical one. Also, in addition to voice services, many of
the UC services can be more efficiently deployed over SIP. Chat
services, presence, conferencing, application sharing and video can
all be delivered over SIP trunking.
SIP trunking also allows organizations to extend VoIP past the
physicalLAN,wheremostofthedeploymentsaretoday.This
removes the need for organizations to purchase costly gateways,
bridges or other equipment that help connect the corporate UC
environment to the PSTN. That connectivity is done in the network
of the network operator, which means the enterprise does not have
to incur the cost.
OverallSIPtrunkingisasimple,cost-effectivemethodofincreasing
the value of the UC rollout. Companies that choose to utilize SIP
trunking will realize the following benefits. SIP trunking will:
Allow organizations to extend UC to the cloud and removes •
the need for expensive gateways
Help companies dramatically lower the overall cost of the •
UC deployment
Allow companies to eventually migrate to a SaaS-based •
offering if they choose to down the road
Provide a gateway to other advanced services that can enhance •
UCsuchaswirelessintegrationandMPLSnetworks
What to Consider in a Solutions Provider
Companies that have done their homework will find that the
decision to use SIP trunking as a way to create a scalable, pain-free
deployment will find the decision an easy one. SIP trunking is the
most cost-effective method of doing this and creates scale far past
what PSTN trunking can do. The question will then become which
network operator is best and what should be considered when
making the decision? While every situation is unique, the following
should be considered when deciding on SIP trunking provider.
Best-in-ClassMultiprotocolLabelSwitching(MPLS)Network
OneofthekeystodeployingUCismaintainingqualityacrossthe
WAN. SIP trunking can provide an IP-based connection to the
cloud, but the service provider still needs to maintain the quality
across the cloud. This can only be done with a service provider
thathasanMPLSnetworkthatwasbuiltfromanall-IPbackbone.
ManynetworkoperatorsclaimtohaveanMPLSnetworkbutin
practicality it has been partially built on a layer two network or the
deploymentsarenotcomplete.Abest-in-classMPLSnetworkwill
allow more of the critical UC services to be placed in a high-value
“class of service” to ensure quality.
© Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.10
SIP Trunking Is Key to Accelerating Unified Communications Deployments
OwnershipofBothWiredandWirelessAssets
Mobile phone integration will be a key component of any UC
deployment. An operator that owns only the wired or wireless
networkcanonlyprovidehalfofthesolution.Ownershipofbothcan
help minimize most potential issues surrounding mobile integration.
SIP Compliance and Commercial Availability
Almost every network operator out there will talk about SIP
trunking when asked about it. However, because of the large
revenue stream associated with legacy services, incumbent
operators will often try and steer customers away from SIP
trunking.Often,itmaymakesensetouseanalternateservice
provider for at least part, if not the majority of the deployment as
an alternative provider is more likely to have a more robust SIP offering.
Strong Reference Design
Obviouslythereismoretoasuccessfuldeploymentthanjust
SIPtrunkingservices.HowtheSIPtrunksconnecttotheMPLS
network, overall network design and scale are all keys to a
successful deployment. Any service provider that is going to be a
viable network partner needs to have a strong, proven reference
design from which to build the implementation on.
Broad Set of Managed and Professional Services
Most network managers that are looking at UC will never have been
involved with a deployment like this before. To assist the enterprise
in having a successful UC deployment, the service provider needs
to have a robust set of managed and professional services than
can assist with the deployment across the entire deployment life
cycle. From the initial design, testing, preparation, installation and
optimization, all need to be areas of expertise for the service provider.
Best-in-Class Partnerships with Premises Vendors
The focus of this report is how to utilize a set of critical network
services to have a successful UC deployment, but the solution still
needs to interoperate with the premises equipment with which the
service is built upon. The network operator needs to have world-
class partnerships with all of the major UC hardware and software
providers to ensure the correct knowledge base and certifications
are in place to guarantee a painless implementation.
None of the above criteria are more or less important than
the other. All of them must be considered when choosing a SIP
trunking service provider that can act as a partner for the deploying
organization. The right choice will ensure a successful UC rollout
that saves money and boosts worker productivity.
V. Sprint Nextel + Microsoft + Nortel = A Case Study in Success
Sprint Nextel Corporation (Sprint), a telecommunications company
headquarteredinOverlandPark,Kansas,offersawiderangeof
communications services to consumers, business and government,
(e.g., mobile data services, instant national/international push to talk
and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone). Until recently, however, the
company’s own internal communications systems were considerably
less dynamic than the ones it offered to its own customers—a
classic example of the cobbler’s children going without shoes.
In Sprint’s case, the company’s aging traditional PBX infrastructure
could not keep up with an increasingly mobile workforce. It turned
to a UC solution to reduce the overall cost of ownership as well as
increase worker productivity. Sprint’s PBX deployment was a typical
multisite deployment with nearly 500 offices having their own
dedicated PBX to provide call control and two dedicated PRI trunks
to connect to the PSTN. Each location also had a dedicated WAN
connection for other corporate IP-based applications and Internet access.
For voice calling, each call went out over one of the two PRI
trunks out to the PSTN, a typical configuration of traditional PBX-
based calling. All other corporate applications such as e-mail, ERP
applications and other IP-based applications were centrally located
in the Sprint headquarters and then delivered over the WAN to the
branch locations.
When Sprint decided to migrate to UC, it turned to Microsoft and
Nortel who through their Innovative Communications Alliance
(ICA) partnership offer a UC solution with tightly integrated call
control, messaging, and productivity and collaboration apps. With
this set of tools, Sprint chose to deploy UC like any other corporate
IP-based application with the applications and voice call control
hosted in the corporate data center. Each of the other almost 500
offices would access UC from the data center over WAN. This
would remove the need for all of the almost 1,000 PRI connections
being used to support calling from the offices.
11© Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
February 2009
Sprint created the solution as follows:
MicrosoftOCSwasdeployedcentrallyintheSprintHQ•
data center. This provided the users with all of the rich UC
functions such as presence, chat, unified messaging and other
capabilities.
Nortel Communication Server (CS) 2100 provided the •
call control for voice dialing. Sprint also deployed Nortel’s
multimedia conferencing server for conferencing services and
a new corporate dialer for external users. Again, these servers
were centrally located in the data center.
Sprint-based SIP trunking for connecting the nearly 500 offices •
totheMPLSbasedWANwiththebandwidthoftheSIPtrunks
being based upon the traffic needs.
Sprint-basedMPLSnetworkforconnectingthebranchesto•
the cloud to access the call control and to provide redundancy.
Benefits to Sprint
Sprint realized many current and future benefits to this
implementation in both cost savings and productivity gains. Exhibit 6
outlines many of the main benefits to Sprint.
Exhibit 6 references only the costs savings that could be measured.
In addition to these Sprint also realized the following qualitative
benefits:
Higher overall system uptime:• Historically, PBXs have
been very reliable—five-nines in most cases—so it was a
common belief among IT executives in the industry that
moving to an IP-based system would only threaten that
reliability. By designing the network to be fully redundant
throughacombinationofMPLSandwirelessnetworking,Sprint
can achieve six-nines of uptime, for virtually nonstop operations.
Better work/life balance: • This is achieved by allowing
workers to telecommute and create flexible work hours. A
centralized UC deployment would ensure that all employees
have access to the same applications and information no
matter where they are located. Additionally, Sprint will be able
to reduce office occupancy and space and lower commute
times—two activities that can lower carbon emissions, making
UC a very “green” technology.
By deploying UC, Sprint was able to recognize significant cost
savings, improve worker productivity and employee morale through
the use of flexible work time and make Sprint an overall more
green organization.
Exhibit 6. UC Combined with SIP Trunking Benefits to SprintSource: Yankee Group and Sprint, 2009
Savings Elimination of PBX Maintenance $1 Million
Savings Travel Reduction $15 Million
Savings Reduction in Project Completion Time $15 Million
Savings Shortened Sales Cycle $5 Million
Savings Reduced Toll and Conferencing Costs $1.8Million
Savings Removal of PRI with SIP Trunks $6 Million
Improved Productivity*
Individual and Workgroup Improvement Through Collaboration $20 Million
Benefit DetailAmount (per year)
*$20 million is an estimate from Sprint based on process improvement through the removal of human latency
© Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.12
SIP Trunking Is Key to Accelerating Unified Communications Deployments
VI. Conclusions and Recommendations
Deploying UC can help organizations lower cost as well as
improve worker productivity. If deployed strategically, it can also
help companies redefine business processes and leapfrog the
competition. However, the deployment of UC should be a well
thought out, strategically planned initiative that involves breaking
the status quo on traditional deployment models for communication
services. With that in mind, companies looking to deploy UC should
consider the following guidelines:
Break the status quo and migrate to SIP trunking.•
SIP trunking is a simple, cost-effective method of increasing
the value of the data network and leveraging any investment
already made in VoIP. SIP trunking can provide a simpler
migration path to UC and open the door to mobile integration
and hosted services.
Think client/server when deploying UC.• As companies
plan their UC deployments, network managers should plan
to eventually migrate the deployment to a client/server
architecture. This means eventually the servers that enabled
UC should be located in the corporate data center alongside
all the other mission-critical applications such as ERP systems
and databases. This type of architecture should be kept in mind
whether it’s a greenfield deployment, the organization chooses
to upgrade its existing PBXs as an interim step or in a “rip and
replace” deployment model.
Start deploying UC immediately.• Although many think
that UC should be layered on top of VoIP, UC can be run with
or without VoIP. Do not pass up on such benefits as presence,
advanced messaging and collaboration applications, which
can be recognized today with a hybrid (i.e., non-VoIP) UC
deployment.Organizationsshouldcreateabudgetlineitem
for UC where it is funded partially from the areas of mobility,
telecom and voice and network infrastructure. This will allow
companies to create a UC budget without having to commit
new money to it.
Look to deploy a multivendor environment. • There is no
one single vendor that can deliver all things UC, and heading
down the deployment path with a single vendor will probably
lead to problems down the road. Evaluators of UC solutions
should look for vendor partnerships such as the Microsoft and
Nortel Innovative Communications Alliance as a way to deliver
best-of-breed functionality from multiple vendors.
Use managed and professional services to augment •
the current skill set. Few companies have the necessary
skills internally to complete a UC implementation. IT
organizations can augment their skill set by utilizing a partner-
managed or professional services offerings. This will help
deliver the whole life cycle of UC while minimizing the risk
of having a new infrastructure that cannot be adequately
supported by internal IT staff.
© Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. Yankee Group published this content for the sole use of Yankee Group subscribers. It may not be duplicated, reproduced or
retransmittedinwholeorinpartwithouttheexpresspermissionofYankeeGroup,PrudentialTower,800BoylstonStreet,27th Floor, Boston, MA 02199. All rights reserved.
All opinions and estimates herein constitute our judgment as of this date and are subject to change without notice.
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