Save money by axing ISDN November 1, 2019 – Posted in: Comms, News – Tags: Comms

You’re not still using ISDN, are you?

As opposed to PSTN, (Analogue Lines), that are typically used at home for your phone & broadband line, ISDN, (Integrated Services Digital Network), unites quite a few pairs of copper cables, authorising businesses to operate with multiple telephone calls at once. Following the pattern with all legacy forms of communication, ISDN is costly and restricted; often seeing businesses spend several hundreds of pounds per quarter for telephone lines & calls alone.

ISDN is the still the leader of voice communications for most businesses, but the end-of-life is already in the distance for this 30 plus-year-old technology. BT have announced their intentions to ‘switch off’ all these services by 2025, and therefore drive forward the adoption of VoIP (Voice-over-IP) telephony by trades up and down the country.

NOW IS THE TIME TO REVIEW

There has never been a better time to evaluate your communications by choosing to dismiss your use of ISDN whenever your contract permits. You can benefit from the instant cost savings while increasing your flexibility by moving to VoIP technology.

Employing VoIP shouldn’t be a distressing & pricey experience – there are many different services and options available these days, with such a competitive marketplace ensuring costs are kept to a bare minimum. Switching from out-dated forms of telephony doesn’t mean you have to leave your numbers behind; you can swiftly & easily port these crossways onto VoIP, enabling you to carry on making & receiving calls as you always have.

BUT, WHAT ABOUT MY INTERNET?

Switching from ISDN to VoIP means that your calls will no longer be running wild over those pairs of copper cables, but instead across your broadband connection. Plausibly, this means you’ll require a relatively quick & steady internet connection to handle your volume of voice traffic, in addition to the data usage for visiting websites, sending/receiving emails and using cloud tools.

In some areas this isn’t an instant possibility – if your business suffers from slow ADSL speeds, and has yet to benefit from access to a fibre connection of some form, you may be apprehensive about the prospect of doing away with the stability of ISDN.

However! In many cases, we’ve seen the savings made from switching from ISDN to VOIP aid in the justification and funding of a dedicated fibre, (also known as a Leased Line), connection. By upgrading to a Leased Line, you’ll benefit from a superfast fibre connection directly from your premises to the BT Exchange and achieve a much quicker connection, which is stable and maintained by the network operator on a contractual service level agreement.

As Leased Lines are run on a dispersed basis to each premises, you are not limited to the restrictions of the current Openreach fibre rollout plans – which sees fibre run only from the Exchange to the local cabinets, (with copper still being used between your building & the cabinet as before). Leased Lines, among many other connectivity options, are open to businesses wherever you may be situated.

With the extra speed & data capacity brought with the installation of a Leased Line, any pain of switching to VoIP is reduced. Your Leased Line would be more than suitable to carry your voice traffic over VoIP, meanwhile providing your team with a much faster & consistent connection to the internet than ever before.