kentoh - Fotolia
How has Twilio SIP trunking disrupted the market?
Making it easier for companies to deploy a SIP trunk was just part of Twilio's strategy. It was Twilio SIP trunking pricing that really changed the game.
The Session Initiation Protocol trunking market has long been dominated by traditional phone carriers that constitute the global public switched telephone network, or PSTN. Originally, SIP trunks gave businesses a last-mile way to connect to the PSTN that was IP-based, scalable and priced at levels that were slightly cheaper than T1/T3 alternatives. But carriers took advantage of their near-monopoly position and forced customers into long-term, multiyear SIP contracts.
Over time, however, two technologies evolved to the point where they have changed the SIP service delivery landscape forever. It's these advancements -- one of which is the foundation for Twilio SIP trunking -- that the vendor, and others, have capitalized on.
First is the evolution of broadband internet. Businesses found they could save money by using their existing internet broadband connection as the last-mile link for business voice communications. Because broadband internet is now more reliable and resilient, it no longer makes sense to deploy a dedicated SIP trunk for voice.
Keeping calls close to the customer's location
The second technological development that helped Twilio break into the SIP trunking market is cloud computing. Using the cloud, Twilio built a global network where it can terminate customer SIP trunks close to where the business is located geographically. This design lets Twilio reduce latency and improve voice performance. Once calls terminate in the Twilio cloud, those calls that need to access the PSTN do so directly from within the cloud data center.
Twilio SIP trunking could have stopped at this point, thanks to the company's Elastic SIP Trunking platform that enables businesses to deploy SIP trunks in minutes, as opposed to weeks. However, the company went one step further by offering a flexible pricing model never before seen in the SIP trunk market. As a result, businesses can now choose between a traditional flat-rate payment option or a pay-as-you-go pricing model. The latter is a great option for businesses that want to scale their operations up or down at a moment's notice.
