TDM stands for Time Division Multiplexing. It’s the technology behind traditional phone service. VoIP stands for Voice over IP and is the transmission of voice communication over the internet.
The following are how particular TDM services compare to their VoIP counterparts:
PRI vs. SIP – The strengths of PRI are uptime and call quality. Nothing provides better call quality than analog phone service. PRIs provide an uptime of 99.999%, which equates to 5 minutes of downtime per year. The restrictions of PRI are that it is a static service, providing 23 channels for voice communication. What if a business only needs 18 lines? Even more challenging is if a business needs 25 lines. If they are utilizing PRI, they must either make do with 2 fewer lines or deploy an extra PRI and have 21 superfluous lines. Because PRI is static, if any of its channels are not in use, they can’t be used in a different capacity, they just sit dormant.
SIP trunks aren’t as stable as PRI and call quality, even with Quality of Service, is slightly less than analog call quality. The big advantage SIP has over PRI is its flexibility and that it’s a dynamic service. SIP trunks can be purchased in any increment. If a business needs 25, they can order 25. When SIP trunks aren’t in use, the bandwidth they utilize is freed up for other purposes, such as data transmission. It was noted by Eastern Management Group that in 2018, 70% of businesses had already converted from PRI to SIP.
POTS vs. SIP – Like PRI, POTS advantages are uptime and call quality. POTS lines are even more stable than PRI because they have their own power supply. But POTS lines are laced with taxes and surcharges. The taxes and surcharges included on one POTS line approach the monthly cost of a single SIP trunk.
SIP trunks provide much greater phone number flexibility. A SIP trunk can utilize a phone number from anywhere in the country. SIP delivers more information and functionality because it rides over the internet. The only information that can be delivered using POTS is Caller ID. For instance, SIP can deliver screen pops, including customer account information, onto an employee’s computer screen when a customer call arrives.
Long Distance – Almost all long distance today ride over the internet. It’s much more economical to transmit long distance across a data network because fixed call channels aren’t required. With TDM, each call requires a separate channel. This is one of the main reasons behind the debate about the obsolescence of Time Division Multiplexing.
If a carrier wanted the ability to transmit one million long distance calls per month in a TDM environment, they would require close to a million fixed channels. With VoIP, bandwidth is all that is required. Another benefit of VoIP is that it costs a lot less for long-distance.
Phone Systems – Today, phone end sets are mini computers. Incoming calls can be managed in a number of different ways with prompts that appear on a phone’s display. Voicemails can be delivered to a recipient’s email inbox. Calls can be recorded and stored as WAV files. When voice communication is transmitted over data circuits, so much more is possible.
If your company is considering implementing VoIP, contact CarrierBid today. We’ll help you free of charge.
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