WHY COX BUSINESS? SIP TRUNKS AND ECONOMIES OF SCALE A White Paper

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1 WHY COX BUSINESS? SIP TRUNKS AND ECONOMIES OF SCALE A White Paper 1 P a g e

2 2013 by Cox Communications. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mecha nical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Cox Communications.

3 Table of Contents Introduction... 1 How Multi-Site Shared Trunking Works... 2 Summary... 3 i

4 Introduction Since the inception of Private Branch Exchange (PBX) systems, business owners have had to make decisions around the appropriate number of trunks required to sustain their business voice operations. This was, and continues to be, an important and ongoing economic decision that business owners need to consider as their business evolves. Various trunk capacity engineering data has been developed that enables business owners or IT managers to make more informed decisions related to the actual number of trunks their business requires. Depending on the business, the inability to connect with a prospect or partner via a single phone call could be worth hundreds of dollars in missed revenue opportunity. Therefore, it is critical for a business to have the correct number of trunks so that unnecessary costs or missed opportunities associated with too many or too few trunks are eliminated. With the increased adoption rate of SIP trunks, technology has evolved to a level that a well-informed IT manager can now dial-in the precise number of trunks required to assure a sufficient level of service during the busiest periods of the day. Although traffic engineering has become more efficient and predictable, multi-site businesses may still be challenged with determining the correct number of trunks needed to support their operations. Up to now, there has not been a reliable and predictable methodology that enables an enterprise to gain an economy of scale across multiple locations when each location has its own individual PBX equipment. Indeed, each location would need to be evaluated for its anticipated call volume requirements and each PBX would need to be provisioned with the appropriate number of trunks to sustain business operations. Cox Business has solved this problem with its Multi-Site Shared Trunking option available to its SIP trunk customers. Cox Business: SIP Trunks and Economies of Scale Page 1

5 How Multi-Site Shared Trunking Works Each location s PBX call capacity is provided from a pooled or shared SIP trunk group that can be accessed from multiple locations within the same metro area. Individual sites retain their own Direct Inward Dial (DID) telephone numbers, while access to and from the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) is channeled through the shared SIP trunk group. The operational advantage of this configuration is that each location can be allocated enough capacity to handle its peak load demand while optimizing the number of trunks required to support the enterprise. This means that the sum of a shared SIP trunk pool will likely be less than the number of SIP trunks required if each location is configured as a standalone entity. The diagram below illustrates this concept. Figure 1. Multi-Site Trunking Diagram As is shown in Figure 1, even though the sum of the locations standard call capacity (85) is greater than the number of SIP trunks provisioned in the SIP trunk pool (75), each location can access the necessary SIP trunks to maintain business operations. The science behind this solution is rooted in widely accepted traffic theorems that derive the correct number of trunks required to support an enterprise based on three factors. First, the total number of calls that will arrive during the busiest hour of the day needs to be determined by means of traditional traffic studies. Next, the average duration of all calls received during busy hour needs to be calculated, likely derived from the traffic study. Finally, the business owner or IT manager needs to establish an acceptable blocking level simply put, how frequently a caller may encounter a busy signal. Once these factors are known, it is relatively easy to determine how many trunks are required to support an enterprise. It generally doesn t matter what type of service the business offers its customers, but different businesses will be more or less willing to tolerate customers receiving a busy signal. The final decision comes down to the potential value of a missed call versus the monthly recurring cost of potentially idle service. By sharing trunks across the enterprise, the probability of either of these situations occurring is measurably reduced. Cox Business: SIP Trunks and Economies of Scale Page 2

6 This approach, which is commonly used in call centers, can also be leveraged in businesses or local government agencies that may have several locations in one city, each of which has its own PBX. It is not uncommon for city or county governments to leverage economies of scale such as this whenever it is practical to do so. Summary Cox Business has the ability to uniquely support its customers SIP trunk requirements in a variety of ways. The specific application discussed here, Multi-Site Shared Trunking, provides business owners and IT professionals with choices that may not be available from other service providers. In addition, our Multi-Site Shared Trunking solution always includes the Call Forward Always and Call Forward Not Reachable features at a trunk group level as options to maintain business operations in the event of a service disruption or an emergency at the customer s premises. The Cox Personal Mobility Option can further enhance our customers employees productivity by assuring they will be able to receive business calls wherever they may be. Cox Business has a strong reputation in the industry for customer service and support. The Multi-Site Shared Trunking application further enables Cox Business to serve its customers in a manner that is efficient, reliable, and differentiates Cox as a leader in its field. Cox Business: SIP Trunks and Economies of Scale Page 3