A Short History of SIP Trunking

Session Initiation Protocol or SIP Trunking is a valuable tool that allows businesses to connect their phone systems to the Internet, and use the speed of digital connections to handle communications versus traditional land lines. The same conduit can still manage everything else as well including 911 calls, multimedia conferencing, messaging, locational information, and other real-time tools. No surprise then, when companies consider the cost of SIP Trunking, many choose to implement the tool organization-wide.

Background

Prior to SIP Trunking, most companies had what was known as analog trucks to help run and operate building or facility phone systems.

Trunking in its original form first manifested in the late 1980s. This was when the very first versions of Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, were first tested in graduate school and experimental labs. The primary goal was to take an audio signal and translate it into a digital format which could then be moved over a computer network and reintegrated into audio at the other end. With a microphone, a computer network, and a modified speaker at the other end, the tests were successful.

Prior to the basic tests above, much of what is now enjoyed in the form of high speed and digital transfer also occurred as phone companies upgraded their phone lines with fiber-optics also during the 1980s. Prior to this time phone cabling was literally that, large bundles of thick copper wiring to carry phone signals. When fiber optics were introduced, they allowed phone companies to move 1,000 times more traffic on a far thinner cable than ever before. The foundation for the digital highway was now put into place in the form of infrastructure.

The second piece that fit the puzzle was the adoption of TCP/IP, otherwise known as Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, becoming a standard in computer construction. By doing this, every desk computer and laptop now had the same standard installed to make them VoIP ready. No surprise then, communications technology with an Internet connection exploded when the tool became practical and readily available.

With the demand of digital communication tools going widespread, T1 lines became commonplace starting in 1993 and 1994. This allowed businesses to have far more channels of communication on a line all at once, and it eventually became the common replacement for analog trunks.

Modern Evolvement

As an offset of making services on a T1 line work better and more efficiently, SIP services have begun appearing in the last few years. They are better known as private branch exchange connection to the Internet or PBX services, but in reality PBX is a benefit of SIP Trunking, not a version of it. Unlike analog trunks, however, SIP Trunking is not a trunk at all. It is instead a service tool that gives a user the ability to run VoIP communications entirely on its Internet network as voice packets in digital form. The two requirements are a PBX system for input and output, as well as an Internet gateway to make connections with.

SIP remains the protocol format for entry, transfer, and reintegration of the audio signal packets into a voice product. In practice, however, the tools can be used for far more than phone calls. It can also handle multi-media activities such as video conferencing, Internet traffic, web conferencing, instant messaging, and more. This reduces the need for separate lines to be in place for each format. Instead, with an SIP Trunking system, everything runs on one line of access for less cost and less network hassle/maintenance.

In Summary

SIP Trunking today owes a lot to the initial design of audio conversion to digital packets for network transmission. It represents to refinement of all those steps made earlier to run audio over computer lines, and SIP Trunking is the reason today so many companies can easily handle phone networks in multiple countries.