ISDN to SIP?

The concept of switching off the ISDN network is certainly nothing new and has been rumoured and discussed for years. However, not the talk is over and it is happening. BT have even given a date; 2015.

Late last year the BT Group CEO stated that BT intend to migrate all customers on to the IP network by 2025.

Gavin Patterson, BT Group CEO, commented “We already serve many thousands of customers in businesses using IP, our goal is by 2025 all of our voice customers will be served using an IP with a premises solution and will migrate off the traditional telephony platform.”

This change means from 2020 businesses will not be encouraged to buy any systems utilising the ISDN network. In August 2013, there were reportedly 3.2 million ISDN channels in the UK, and although BT do not have all of these on their network, a significant number of ISDN customers in the UK now have a date from which they will no longer be in service, so customers who are currently using them will be looking to move – this probably includes your business.

It is now time for businesses to get ahead and unlock the benefits of VoIP by switching to SIP Trunking in order to protect themselves from any issues in the future. Those businesses that wait too long will find themselves rushing decisions and implementations as the date draws near.