The “Bring Your Own” concept in technology has been around for some time now.

We’ve heard of “Bring Your Own Devices” (BYOD) for companies that want to give employees the freedom to use the tools they’re familiar with, in the office. There’s even “Bring Your Own Meeting”, for agnostic meeting room technology that allows businesses to log into any video conferencing solution in seconds.

But what about Bring Your Own Carrier?

BYOC is an idea gaining a lot of steam in a time when companies are making the rapid transition into the cloud. Now more than ever, businesses leaders know that if they want to stay ahead of the competition for communication, they need to be on the cloud.

BYOC provides a more flexible route to the cloud for business leaders.

Today, we’re going to share everything you need to know about BYOC.

Understanding BYOC: Assessing the Stack

These days, if you want to invest in cutting-edge tech for your communication and collaboration strategy, you need to be willing to talk in acronyms. There are various options to come to terms with right now, including UCaaS, CPaaS, APIs, and even SIP.

Bring Your Own Carrier, or “BYOC” belongs in this same ecosystem of acronyms. As companies make the switch away from the PSTN network and into a more digital environment, they’re turning to things like SIP trunks that enable calls and conversations to move through the web.

The result of making this transition is a host of benefits, including cheaper global coverage, greater flexibility, and better overall efficiency. The SIP trunk, like the PSTN, is the technology that transports a call from one person to another. Think of the SIP trunk as the infrastructure layer in your technology stack.

On top of that layer, you need additional technology to make everything work properly. First, you’ll need a PBX based on the cloud or on-premises, which you can direct phone calls to, and use to send conversations out of your organisation. Then, on top of that, you have your platform of choice, the UCaaS solution that provides your functionality for things like conference calling and call recording.

BYOC: Choosing Your Own Central Layer

The quickest way to build a communications system on the cloud is usually to go for an all-in-one full stack bundle from a UCaaS or CPaaS provider. There are tons of vendors out there who can provide the infrastructure, logic, and other elements of your communication stack in one chunk.

CPaaS even gives you the freedom to add in various customisation elements that are custom-made for your company. However, you don’t have to take the bundled approach. There’s a growing interest in BYOC as companies look for a more “DIY” approach to cloud communications.

If you decide to “unbundle” the stack, you could (in theory), access all of the different layers that you like best from best-in-breed providers. This means that you get a lot more control and flexibility when it comes to deciding how your communication environment should work.

With BYOC, you supply your own PSTN access solution by adding the carrier of your choice to your overall communications environment. You pick the SIP trunking provider you want to connect your communications strategy to the internet and therefore have more control over that foundational “infrastructure” level.

When is BYOC a Good Idea?

Full-stack UCaaS and CPaaS solutions have their benefits in the right environment. For smaller companies, a full-stack solution tends to offer a more straightforward way to move to the cloud, with access to more support and simplicity from your communications vendor. For larger companies that have specific needs and requests, a BYOC might be the better option.

As companies continue to make the transition into the cloud, they can easily come across various hurdles where a BYOC might be useful. For instance, enterprise companies can end up amid multi-year contracts with carriers that would cost a fortune to get out of. In other cases, enterprises might have locations in some regions where they need to use a specific carrier to maintain certain compliance and regulatory standards.

Many larger companies, particularly those with locations worldwide, are currently facing a complex, phased transition into the cloud, but BYOC can offer additional flexibility. With Bring Your Own Carrier, organisations can manage the movement from legacy systems into a cloud platform in a more efficient fashion. Simultaneously, because the transition is happening chunk by chunk, there’s the extra peace of mind of being able to roll back if something doesn’t go according to plan.

For many business leaders, separating platforms and the underlying technology for your telephony solution can represent the best of both worlds. You get to hold onto the functionality that you already know and appreciate from your carrier. At the same time, you get to unlock all of the extra flexibility you need.

Should You Be Using BYOC?

A Bring Your Own Carrier approach, like many concepts in the BYO world, gives companies an extra level of control over their transition into the cloud. Although most companies agree that the cloud will be the future of their communication strategy, not everyone is ready to move at the same pace, or with the same technology. Going through your own carrier means that you can maintain all the benefits and discounts that you’re taking advantage of right now with your telephony provider.

BYOC allows you to maintain complete control of your call routing and services for compliance and regulatory reasons, while ensuring you can extend your coverage to the markets that suit you. You’ll be able to avoid regulatory issues in certain countries and enjoy better assurances over things like call quality and resiliency. As you scale, you also get the preferred pricing of a company that shows loyalty to its existing SIP provider.

Bring Your Own Carrier essentially gives business leaders the potential to future-proof their communication strategy without making any compromises. You take advantage of your existing numbers and carriers in an environment built for the future of the cloud. You can use a single global provider, or multiple providers, depending on your needs.

 

 

 



from UC Today https://ift.tt/32F8Utz