A guide to selecting
the right service
provider
With the adoption of IP voice expected to be the norm by 2017*, the global market has seen a myriad of hosted unified communications platforms emerge. These platforms offer the consumer and business markets a fantastic array of choice. However, all of these providers do have to rely on ‘in-country’ telephony networks which allow them to provide termination to the relevant countries’ PSTNs and can also provide access to the countries numbers or give the ability to host complete number ranges. With this in mind, choosing the right carrier partner is more critical than ever. Choose the wrong partner and you could see an impact on your reputation as well as the stability of your platform and brand.
This document outlines the steps you should be taking when searching for and selecting a partner that’s right for your business. We’ll also give a series of ‘insider questions’ which will help to ensure you make an informed decision based on all information gathered.
Size and scale
Remember, bigger isn’t always better. It’s crucial when selecting a partner that you balance the business size with the quality of service. Don’t accept anything other than an architected availability of 99.99% and ensure geographic diversity is provided as standard. It’s also important to find out if the carrier can actually deliver services similar to ones that you currently offer. This is a good indicator as to whether they will fully understand your requirements.
Questions you should be asking:
• How many SIP channels do they have in their respective countries?
• What hosted services are available for you to offer to your customers?
• How many interconnects do they have with the in-country PTO? (BT in the UK) • What SLA do they offer on their SIP service? • Can they demonstrate how they’ve
performed against this SLA?
Financial stability
The last thing you want is for your partner to run into financial troubles which in turn leads to you losing your customers’ numbers. When a provider goes into administration, the numbers they’ve supplied will often be ceased in order to prevent the number range host from accruing further losses. You can’t let this happen! Make sure that the company you partner with is financially sound and, ideally, not entirely reliant on a single revenue stream.
You should be looking for:
• A copy of their last published set of accounts
• Information on the percentage of their revenue that comes directly from SIP services
• Confirmation and guarantee that your customers’ numbers will be retained should something happen to the partner’s business
Service and support
With any technical service it’s inevitable that at some point there may be a service issue which impacts normal business practice. It’s therefore critical that you partner with a provider that reacts well in this situation. If the support team is drowning in bureaucracy, then issues may take longer than necessary to rectify; not enough bureaucracy and you may find there is too high a dependency on individuals, which can lead to resource issues if people leave the business or take annual leave. Thankfully, there are a few pointers which should help you make the right decision when it comes to support.
Make sure that your
partner offers 24/7
support for both you and your customers, ideally with dedicated assistance for IP voice solutions. In addition, it’s important that you opt for a provider that has a simple yet flexible escalation process in place (waiting two hours to escalate a mission-critical fault won’t win you any friends). Your customers will often be looking to you for a service that offers specific in-country support, rather than sites located offshore. By ensuring your partner has an in-country support team you can be confident that the support staff has a good understanding of local environmental factors, as well as strong knowledge of country-based regulations.
Questions to ask:
• Can they provide a copy of their escalation process and contact list? • Do they offer dedicated, in-country
SIP support teams?
Fraud management tools
Statistically PBX fraud (also knowing as phreaking or hacking) is now a bigger issue than credit card fraud and is rumoured to be worth $20bn globally*? Hackers will dial into a system, usually by cracking poorly set passwords or passcodes, and proceed to make multiple premium-rate calls or alternatively route unauthorised traffic to high-value destinations. This is nearly always done over a weekend or bank holiday allowing the hacker to disappear before normal working hours resume – leaving a trail of despair. Unfortunately it’s usually the end user who gets landed with a pretty substantial bill that they have to pay; some have even been as much as £30,000!** Thankfully there are processes being put in place to try and eradicate phone fraud, protecting both the supplier and end user.
A good starting point to avoid this is to choose a partner that has a dedicated team monitoring and managing calls and looking for any
inconsistencies or extreme changes in caller behaviour. Even better, some providers
offer solutions that have built-in fraud protection cover. This means that if call costs or times are ‘unusually high’, the user can be notified and, in some cases, the provider can pause the service whilst the issue is investigated. Questions to ask:
• Do they have a team dedicated to monitoring fraudulent activity?
• Do their products and services include fraud management or protection?
* http://www.gamma.co.uk/about/gamma-tv/Fraud Management for SIP Trunks
APIs
With automation fast-becoming the norm in the business world, APIs are quickly being seen as the language of the future. Not only do they help to prevent human error, they can also integrate products and services.
To future-proof your platform and potentially gain a competitive advantage, having access to APIs is essential. However, make sure they adhere to one of the key frameworks that are commonly used today.
It’s worth asking:
• Can they provide APIs for the provision and management of inbound numbers?
• Do they have an API for the provision and management of SIP services?
• What API frameworks do they adhere to?
Regulatory support
Understanding and managing regulatory affairs can be challenging, time consuming and costly. A good carrier partner will have strong working relationships with the regulator as well as an in-depth understanding of their processes, procedures and any requirements. It’s also worth ensuring that they are compliant with the emergency services requirements. What’s more, some carriers will help to manage Ofcom-related requests such as number application queries and the ability to host numbers.
Make sure you check:
• Who their primary contacts are at their respective regulator
• If they provide number hosting services • If they can manage any number
application requests
• What their policies and processes are when it comes to emergency services contact data for your customers
Data services portfolio fit for voice
The last 15 years has seen widespread proliferation of broadband services in the UK. Over 77% of adults in the UK now have the service, with 68% of UK properties now able to receive superfast fibre broadband. This growth is set to continue during the next 18 months with high-speed access for businesses likely to become even more easily accessible. It’s therefore inevitable that businesses are starting to look into deploying IP-based telephony solutions over these high-speed connections. This represents both an opportunity and a challenge. Voice, by its nature, is a challenging service to carry over a standard broadband connection. It can be sensitive to slow connections, delay on the network and instability. Your partner should have a clear understanding of voice services and have experience in managing Openreach when it comes to any voice-related issues. Make sure to ask your chosen provider:
• If they can they supply data that allows voice to travel over both a public and private connection?
• What equipment is used both in the core network as well as on the edge? • Do they have issues with latency, packet
loss, jitter or speed? (This will determine how a line performs when carrying voice and is a more accurate measure of whether a data service will provide adequate support for voice services) • Do they have voice-based tools that
can carry out quality checks? • Have they designed their network
with voice services in mind?
Hosting
Most telcos will allow their partners to host infrastructure in their data centres. This can be of benefit to both you and your customers as it allows very low latency access to the PSTN while offering high levels of availability.
You should be asking:
• If they have a team dedicated to monitoring fraudulent activity • If their products and services
include fraud management or protection
Porting
Number porting is often overlooked. It’s also notoriously difficult (particularly here in the UK) so choosing a provider that can support you during this process is critical. It’s also worth investigating how the porting is carried out. Do they use an online portal or are they still using pen and paper?
The ability to manage complex porting projects along with potential out-of-hours requests is critically important.
It’s therefore vital that you find out:
• Who they have porting agreements with • How they manage the porting process • If they can carry out porting out-of-hours
Flexible commercial model
Once upon a time the only model available from carriers was one based on usage - pay for what you use in pence per minute. Nowadays things have changed due to the mass adoption of mobile tariffs that offer bundled minutes, texts and data. This gives both business and residential users the ability to fix their monthly mobile outgoings.
You should be looking for commercial models that suit your business plans and market strategy. Selecting a partner that will share some of the risk can help you offer an attractive proposition without having to
expose your business. It’s worth also keeping an eye out for short term contracts with little or no commitments.
Consider asking:
• If they have bespoke commercial models which could meet your requirements • If they offer bundled minutes as part of
their commercials/packages
• What their standard contract term and minimum commitments are
Government and security compliance
Ensuring you choose a provider with a secure business and network is essential, as is making sure they have the necessary security accreditations in place. Payment Card Industry (PCI) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) compliance is fast-becoming essential for the modern business. More than ever customers are asking providers to take their own environment out of scope, therefore reducing complexity and cost from their own operation by passing it across to their unified communications provider. Yet with the cost of ensuring your own platform is compliant potentially running into hundreds of thousands of pounds, alongside the hundreds of man hours required to put this in place, it’s understandable that historically this has been seen as a significant barrier to entry. The good news is that some carriers have now built and deployed this technology into their network. But what does this mean to you as the supplier? In essence it means that you no longer have to worry about your business environment being compliant. Your partner, and therefore the carrier, will instead ensure you remain out of scope allowing you to deliver the service to your customers in a more cost-effective manner. Key questions to ask:
• Do they have ISO27001? If so, can you see the documentation for this?
• Can they offer PCI compliance on your customers’ SIP trunking?
• Do they have PCI compliance technology embedded into their network?
Number presentation and CLI verification
Often number presentation and the verification rules they can offer is ignored when choosing a provider. Yet with SIP, providers can have both a presentation number and a network number; but be aware, some SIP providers may only allow you to alter the presentation number. This can cause issues when passing the bill on to your customers.
The good news is that some carriers now offer a service designed specifically for platform owners, allowing both numbers to be altered. It does this by assuming that all SBC to SBC traffic is designated for the provider. This allows information to be passed on safely.
Don’t forget to ask:
• If their solution is designed with platform owners in mind
• What their policy is regarding number presentation and CLI verification
• If you, as the supplier, have the ability to alter the presentation and network numbers
Training and accreditation
It’s not just the products and processes that are important when choosing a partner, selecting a vendor that properly trains and supports you as the supplier is also essential. The right partner will not only provide you with technical support both in person and over the phone, they’ll also provide you with all the tools you need to find out the required information yourself, for example using online tools and portals.
You should also be looking for a partner that has a comprehensive portfolio of training and accreditations available, ideally
via easy-to-follow videos, webinars and onsite training.
Remember to ask:
• If they have training videos available to support you
• If they have any formal accreditation programmes
• How many trainers/points of contact they have that you can easily touch base with
