What is IP Flexible Reach?

Small businesses are discovering that a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solution called Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) can save time and money by reducing the hassles of network management. SIP, which consolidates voice and data over one network, is growing in popularity. SIP trunking is the convergence of voice and data on a single circuit supporting existing PBX equipment. Small businesses that switch to VoIP reduce the cost of their local calls by up to 40% and save up to 90% on international calls. ¹

VoIP in general has an immense appeal for small businesses. VoIP can also eliminate the need for phone lines and other underlying hardware. Second, consolidating voice and data on one network means your IP phones are user friendly to manage and can be managed remotely. Finally, VoIP comes with an array of services such as voice emails, number portability, and the ability to make calls from almost anywhere in the world.

SIP takes VoIP a step further by enabling text, images, and video, and it also allows you to scale your communications. It can help you cut costs, improve productivity, increase flexibility, and therefore remain current in the technology space as your business grows.

Many products are available to help businesses ride the SIP wave, which as mentioned, can help them cut costs and stay competitive.

For example, AT&T IP Flexible Reach is a SIP trunking service that delivers integrated access for IP PBX, TDM PBX or Key System environments, providing potential total cost benefits through the consolidation of voice and data – one provider, single transport, and management options. Voice and data traffic riding over the same transport drives greater bandwidth use and potential access to cost savings. This managed VoIP communication solution includes calling plans that support inbound and outbound calling on your data network.

How does AT&T IP Flexible Reach work?

To help give you business-class voice quality, AT&T enables Class of Service (CoS), which allows you to prioritize voice packets over other types of data packets for immediate transport. AT&T engineers perform advanced bandwidth management and implement traffic queuing priorities in the gateway router as part of the deployment process. AT&T IP Flexible Reach helps maximize the efficiency of your communications infrastructure. To help support your smooth migration, we provide design, implementation, and lifecycle management.

How can your business benefit?

• Optimize your network capacity. Combine voice and data over one integrated network.
• Use your current equipment. Avoid investing in new equipment for voice lines.
• Control costs. Simplify network management.
• Be scalable and flexible. Increase and decrease the number of concurrent call channels as needed.
• Maintain call quality. Calls are carried on the AT&T MPLS network, not the public internet.
• Avoid toll charges. On-net (VoIP-to-VoIP) calls route within the IP network and avoid additional charges.

Use case: Auto dealership

Perhaps you’re an auto dealership with a staff of 25 and you want to expand business beyond your small hometown, throughout the United States, and even overseas. You want to appeal to in-person shoppers but also online shoppers. Videos of the latest cars and trucks can help your business expand, but the slow speed and unreliability of current internet service makes it difficult to upload and share videos. AT&T Dedicated Internet Service and AT&T IP Flexible Reach together can give the dealership all the bandwidth it needs to share photos and videos of its entire inventory so sales can expand worldwide.

Use case: Mattress manufacturer

Maybe you’re a mattress company that designs and builds mattresses to customers’ precise specifications. Personalized, high-touch white glove service is crucial to winning over customers. You need a reliable phone system to support this kind of customer service. Outages, poor sound quality, and latency issues might translate directly to lost customer contact and reduced sales. AT&T IP Flexible Reach can help the manufacturer provide outstanding customer service, even when those customers are scattered around the globe.

We’re here for you

Are you a small- to medium-sized business seeking to control costs and simplify management of your communications infrastructure? You may need to deal with aging or end-of-life equipment and don’t know where to begin. Call us. We have professionals who can help demystify the technology for you and get you up and running.

AT&T Business is here to help small businesses in a big way. Our Tech Demystified series can help you decide what products and services will work best for your business. To learn more, visit SIP trunking with AT&T IP Flexible Reach or contact your local sales representative.

¹ 5 Reasons VoIP is Essential for Business Today