With the end of ISDN just around the corner – you may be worried that you have to junk your Digital PBX – and all the extension phones that go with it – and buy a whole new VoIP telephone system! While there are very good reasons for doing so, that’s not your only option …
Our partner – Yeastar – have produced a range of ISDN gateways designed to interface Basic (2-channel) and Primary Rate (30-channel) ISDN services into their S-Series IP-PBX appliances. This usually allows us to connect ISDN lines along-side VoIP SIP Trunk services – e.g. where legacy ISDN trunks are left in service, and expansion is done using SIP.
However, the reverse is also true … These gateways can be ‘flipped’ so that an ISDN port on a Digital PBX can be connected to the gateway, and then the gateway can be connected to Cloud-based SIP Trunk services through Broadband, provided by an Internet Telephony Service Provider (ITSP).
You have four Gateway choices:
For larger companies, the TE100 will interface a single ‘Primary Rate’ ISDN30e [E1] service allowing provision of up to 30 channels to carry external calls to and from the PBX. The TE200 terminates two E1 services from the PBX, allowing up to 60 channels for external calls.
For smaller businesses, a TB200 gateway will interface two ‘Basic Rate’ ISDN2e [BRI] services allowing provision of up to four channels to carry calls, while its big-brother, the TB400 will interface four ISDN2e services, allowing connection of up to eight active SIP Trunk line channels.
What are the advantages?:
First of all, this requires no changes to your existing Digital PBX or the extension phones supported by it. The gateways aren’t cheap, but they don’t incur any monthly rental costs and are nowhere near the the price of a new phone system, new handsets and associated user training.
Literally hundreds of SIP Trunk channels can be delivered through a low-cost FTTC/VDSL broadband service, or on a small portion of your existing leased line DSL. It’s therefore possible to dramatically reduce the number of lines and overall costs for voice and data connections to the outside world.
The costs associated with rental of SIP Trunk services are orders of magnitude lower than for ISDN. A recent costing exercise showed us a 25% reduction in set-up / hardware costs over ISDN30e, and an ongoing monthly reduction of 80% in ‘line’ rental charges over the ISDN30e. Your existing DDI number range can be ported to an ITSP’s SIP Trunk service (the process includes the ‘cease’ of the ISDN lines), and after that your monthly costs are only for SIP Trunk channels and outbound call minutes. There are no additional charges for caller ID and DDI numbers – but you still have these services included and provided as standard SIP features.
A typical SIP Trunk channel rental is just £4 per month – while a typical monthly rental for an ISDN30e channel, is £28 (plus CLI and DDI services). Connection charges for SIP Trunk channels are £zero! – in comparison, ISDN30e connection charges are around £105 per channel. This means that ROI time for the gateway purchase is quite short when compared to your monthly ISDN service charges!
With some modern digital PBX systems, it is possible to terminate Internet and SIP Trunk services directly at the PBX itself … However, when doing so, be aware that some system manufacturers (e.g. Avaya), require you to purchase licenses to interface and support calls on SIP Trunk channels. Installation of a Yeastar gateway makes no change to the ISDN line termination on the Digital PBX and therefore you have no redundant line interface cards, no inbound and outbound route re-configuration, and no SIP license fees to pay.
Get in touch with us at Foxhall Solutions, to talk about how you would like to move on from ISDN, and reduce your operation costs … 01787 228402
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