Garrett Smith, SIP Trunking & Packet8

Garrett Smith is right on the money in his appraisal of Packet8’s new SIP trunking service. I wonder if anyone sees the paradox in this?

A year ago when I was shopping around for a hosted IP-PBX I looked at Packet8, but they didn’t make the cut. One of the major reasons I couldn’t consider them is that their business class service relied upon an ATA and an analog phone. Apparently it still does. We had a requirement for SIP hard phones in a variety of locations.

This also begs the question, “what’s the difference between a SIP trunk and a hosted IP-PBX that deals with SIP end-points?” What if the SIP end-point is a multi-line capable phone like a Polycom IP601/650 (great devices!) or Aastra 57i CT?

A trunk normally refers to the line between the on-site PBX and the carrier. If there is no on-site PBX then is the line to the SIP phone a trunk? I suspect that a number of ITSPs have been engaged in SOHO “SIP trunking” as their service provides SIP based connectivity and allows n concurrent calls. Could this just be a renaming of an existing service in this market segment?

FWIW, we settled on Junction Networks OnSIP…and we’re still very happy a year later.