PRI Phone Service vs. SIP Trunking

Telecom Business Review | Wednesday, July 13, 2022

Getting lost in those acronyms can be easy, but it all boils down to two choices. SIP Trunking vs. PRI. More particularly, Primary Rate Interface (PRI) phone systems (traditional telephony) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) phone systems are delivered over Session Initiation Protocol (SIP).

Fremont, CA: If you're looking for a substitute for your business phone system or just starting a business and looking at what phone system to purchase, you're probably swimming in a sea of acronyms.

As organizations understand the cost-cutting and productivity-boosting benefits of cloud communication tools, many switches from PRI phones to SIP. Nevertheless, others choose to stay with legacy phone systems, while others are still using hybrid solutions that blend legacy and IP phones into a single design.

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In a manner, PRI and SIP phones both serve the same core purpose: allowing employees at the enterprise to place and receive business phone calls.

What is PRI Phone Service?

PRI is a T-1 transmission technology widely used to support voice communications for over 40 years.

A PRI circuit incorporates 23 voice channels to support 23 concurrent calls and one data channel to support call-related functionality like caller ID.

Voice calls supported over PRI technology are submitted as electrical pulses and routed through traditional telecommunications carriers. Conventional telephony requires a relationship with a telecommunications company and on-site servicing of cabling to add lines or upgrade equipment.

PRI is a substitute for IP-based phone technologies comprising SIP trunking.

Pros of PRI

• Does not depend on data bandwidth to support voice calls

• High quality through dedicated line structure

• It can be made redundant by adding a second PRI circuit for failover.

Cons of PRI

• PRI is costly to implement and update and requires costly monthly phone service

• May need long-term contracts with traditional telecom companies for local and long-distance calling.

• Requires devoted capacity that can only be purchased in 23-line units

• Slow to scale, alteration to infrastructure may take weeks of waiting.

Best Use Cases for PRI Technology

• Organizations with legacy PRI infrastructure, limited access to fiber-optic internet connectivity, or sufficient bandwidth to support IP-supported phones.

• Hybrid PRI & SIP trunking implementations, where organizations retain legacy PRI technology for local calls while utilizing SIP for multimedia communications and saving long-distance/international calling costs.

What is SIP Trunking or a SIP Phone?

SIP encourages the transmission of voice calls as data and other multimedia communications. SIP is a phone technology that encourages the transmission of Integrated Communications, involving video conferencing, SMS messages, data transmissions, and more.

For organizations with emceed phone communications, SIP trunking equipment is usually hosted and maintained by the vendor to manage the transmission of voice data. SIP is an alternative to PRI in eliminating the need for traditional phone infrastructure comprising circuits.

Pros of SIP Trunking

• Sold by vendors on a per-channel grounds on-demand, so you only pay for the capacity required

• A lot less; cost savings vary but can be as much as 30-40% inexpensive than PRI phones

• Offers failover to mobile phones against loss of office data connectivity

• Incorporates easy-to-use administrative portals for easy management

• It May be offered via the cloud as part of a Unified Communications (UC) implementation

• It can be integrated with multimedia communications for collaboration and productivity

• Provides simple support for multiple sites and remote workers

• It May incorporate rich mobile features and mobile-first design

• Incorporates with PRI phone lines for hybrid phone systems

Drawbacks of SIP Trunking

• Needs internet bandwidth, preferably business fiber internet, to support quality of service (QoS).

• Needs adequate network information security, like firewalls, to prevent cybercrime risks.

• The quality and plasticity of service-hosted VoIP vendors can considerably vary.

Best Use Cases for SIP Technology

• Saving money on business phone service, particularly for organizations with long-distance and international outbound calling.

• Cost-effective support for contact centers.

• Adding mobility characteristics to the enterprise and supporting remote workers.

• Decreasing the burden of phone system management on internal IT personnel.

• Moving towards hosted, multi-channel cloud communications or Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS)

• Gaining the ability to fast-scale business communications by counting and removing lines and features on-demand.

Is SIP Trunking vs. PRI Best for My Business?

PRI and SIP Trunking are two conflicting approaches to phone technology that each carry distinct advantages and disadvantages. There is no one correct answer. Your best fit will be based on the particular needs of your business when it comes to telephony.

SIP trunking to support VoIP telephony or UCaaS is the smarter choice for many organizations. It enables access to the benefits of significant cost savings, improved collaboration tools, and better reliability.

For other firms, a hybrid approach to employing PRI and SIP is the right decision. Educational institutions may decide to implement unified communications but maintain a few PRI lines to support legacy intercom technology and some disaster recovery planning scenarios. For other businesses still, PRI may be the right choice.

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