In 2015, Openreach announced that they will be ending the provision of ISDN in 2020, with the view to ceasing these services by 2025. At this point, businesses within the UK will have no other choice but to make the transition to IP-based telephony such as SIP/VoIP. According to Ofcom, there are currently 2 million UK businesses using ISDN and, following a survey conducted by TalkTalk, 25% of business owners are unaware of the scheduled termination of these services. With the turn of the decade, it is widely advised that companies look to make the transition to IP-based telephony as soon as possible.
Why are they being phased out?
Put simply, the world is rapidly moving towards IP as a standard modern protocol, whilst ISDN is becoming an out-dated legacy infrastructure. When it was originally launched in 1986, ISDN provided a useful technology that could facilitate both Voice and Data. However, over recent years, greater investment has been made in high-speed fibre internet enabling better delivery of Voice and Data applications. With these advancements, ISDN is no longer the optimal technology for business communications. Openreach’s declaration to remove ISDN highlights the need to modernise the UK’s communications infrastructure in line with the growing trend for IP-based protocol across the world.
What is VoIP?
In a nutshell, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) can be simply defined as using an internet connection to route inbound and outbound calls rather a physical ISDN or PSTN line. VoIP is not a new technology and its popularity can largely be attributed to the improvements and availability of fibre-based internet services in the UK. There are a number of benefits that VoIP can provide over ISDN: it is much quicker to provision new lines, you can reduce your line rental due to needing fewer physical lines, and it is vastly scalable and flexible – for example, you can redirect calls to different parts of the country at the flick of a switch, or have a single phone number follow you around the world irrespective of where you’re working. Following a survey conducted by Censuswide, 96% of companies that made the transition from ISDN to IP-based telephony also experienced significant cost savings.
What should you do next?
- Identify when your current landline contract is due to expire. This will enable you to pinpoint an ideal time to transition from ISDN to VoIP. Don’t be tempted to simply renew your contract as 2020 begins. A transition to VoIP could save you a great deal of money, and time, in the long term.
- Review your internet connectivity as this will be the foundation that enables you to make and receive calls. Your experience with VoIP is only as good as the internet that supports it. Completing due diligence will allow you to identify the optimum connection to support quality telephone service.
- Check if your current telephony system supports SIP/VoIP. If it doesn’t, or if you want to modernise your equipment, consider an upgrade to cloud-based (otherwise known as hosted) telephony. This will secure your ability to communicate in future whilst bringing about new features to improve call handling.
Tela Technology provides award-winning VoIP and Internet services across the country. Feel free to get in touch to organise a free consultation to identify how you can prepare your business for the transition to VoIP.
