A few months ago I attended a conference among numerous dealers, the factory guys and a national SIP service provider. The concerns resonate among the dealers and VARs but I don't think there's a meeting of the minds in how dealers/VARs are going to put in place tools to support their customers. "Revenue" is what they see."My boss refuses to endorse something that will make us look bad."
Not much to argue about here because whether you are users studying migration plans to move voice services over to SIP trunks or just evaluating to appease the boss, no one wants to look bad or have their boss look bad. The cold reality is that businesses are going to be stretched for finding avenues of doing more with less and for less, for years ahead. Unlike other economic cycles, this current mess isn't cyclic. Throwing all your telephony services over SIP trunks probably isn't the wisest choice or idea unless you are a small or very small business with cell phones to boot. The journey that anyone chooses can be rewarding but it won't be without risks and to minimize or even remove the threats to the risks can wipe out your TCO model that you started with. Adding more bandwidth is not a sustainable solution and I don't mean from a "green" perspective.
"The savings are too substantial to ignore."
Again, it's true but the caution is that while the savings can be significant the allure to SIP trunks for dealers and VARs is residual income. There's no one out there that appreciates "residuals" coming in each month more than I do. Unfortunately, money sometimes gets in the way of rational thinking. Since that initial training session I've attended several more and no one talks about alternative routing, voice monitoring and metrics to support service level agreements. Either folks come out with dollar signs in their eyes or they don't. The ones looking at just the money are missing what could erode their residual income and cause lost customers.
"How do we support this?"
This is when the sales guys start to wiggle or they give a bold statement that the provider has a 24x7x365 staffed NOC. Okay, so what? How do dealers and VARs support SIP trunking without adequate tools and training beyond how to crunch numbers showing that the Telco landline services cost more? These are the questions not being asked or addressed and instead the focus is on the "savings" potential and "residual income." The other detail overlooked is that in some dealer/VAR agreements, you--the dealer/VAR--are to provide first level support. Weigh this against higher volumes of trouble reports for SIP/IP calls against your potential "residual" revenue while maintaining customer satisfaction. Now the one bright light that always isn't appreciated by customers is that most dealers and VARs will put skin in the game by at least first getting a real world sampling of what SIP trunking feels like so they know what they are selling to their customer base. Dealer demos aren't free and they do require resources and time to evaluate along with a willingness to make them work within reason. SIP Trunks: The Allure weighs potential first efforts in lieu of an all out assault to cut your Telco cords completely.
For the Telcos, SIP trunking is more than a warning shot across your bow. You may find ways in the rates and tariffs to put the screws to access and bandwidth but I think it would be akin to trying to tax everything on the Internet. For dealers/VARs I'm not advocating that everyone walks away with money on the brain. I'm telling you from several first hand encounters that the factory guys and the ITSPs aren't telling you responsibly that SIP/IP creates more trouble and you've got to have those tools and skill sets to support your customers. For customers, know the pitch and understand who's giving it and then determine whether or not they can substantiate what they are selling with great support. Then, you hold the vendors accountable. For consultants you can have a field day and to the factory guys I can keep repeating myself about what you need to build into your products, but what's the point? ITSPs, shame on you. Everyone wants to sell and everyone wants to save money. Not everyone wants to hear what needs to be done.
