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SIP Trunks Find a Niche: Page 5 of 5

One way to address this is to use a VSP that also serves as your ISP. Such providers can set up appropriate QOS metrics to ensure that important sales calls take precedence over a co-worker's download of the latest "The Office" episode. One pitfall of using the same provider for voice and Internet access is that you are restricted to the provider's voice and data service offerings, and pricing tends to be more expensive for a higher quality of service.

We opted for a VSP independent of our ISP, as we found our ISP's voice service unsatisfactory. We obtained a dedicated 768-Kbps fractional T1 line that connected us to a Level 3 Communications Tier 2 provider. After some searching, we found Bandwidth. com, which provides SIP trunking service through Level 3 Tier 1 soft switches. After our voice data leaves our ISP's network, it never has to leave Level 3's backbone before connecting to the PSTN--resulting in superb call quality, with very few QoS problems in our three months of experience.

Matt Vlasach is CEO of Pacific Swell Networks. Write to him at [email protected].