What does All-IP mean?
Essentially, All-IP means a connectivity-first network, with a business’ voice, broadband and additional services, such as cloud and security, being powered by Single Order connectivity solutions with no telephone line.
This shift to All-IP has been in the works for many years, but when Openreach announced plans to close the traditional telephony network by December 2025, it created a new urgency within the industry.
Since their 2018 announcement, Openreach have been working hard to bring replacement connectivity solutions to market while also expanding their full fibre network. As it stands, businesses currently have two broadband options: SOGEA or FTTP, but there are more Single Order variants in the pipeline, including SOTAP/SOADSL and SOGFAST, designed to enable digital transformation across the UK.
These solutions are set to become the underlying service that supports all Over The Top solutions, including voice, UC&C and Cloud applications. In the voice market, businesses can choose from several options on their migration journey, including SIP trunking, hosted SIP, hosted voice and single line replacements.
So, there are multiple roads your customers can take, choosing the solutions that best suit their business, but they all lead to the same destination: All-IP.
Customer 1
Say you’ve got a customer who has a small office-based business with an on-site PBX. Their 30 employees each have a desk phone and are using FTTC broadband to support day-to-day web activity.
They’ll need to change both their voice and connectivity solutions before 2025, meaning you have the opportunity to migrate them to reliable, future-proof communications products that will see them through the PSTN withdrawal.
The only obstacle? They’re tied into a lengthy contract with the on-site hardware, meaning they don’t want to migrate to VoIP straight away. With a hybrid VoIP solution like HV.Select, you can provide SIP trunking, enabling IP telephony while they retain their PBX, and when their contract is up, you can simply uplift them to hosted seats at the click of a button.
Alongside the voice migration, you can also upgrade them to a Single Order broadband service, meaning they no longer rely on the WLR (phone line) for their connectivity. SOGEA utilises the same technology as FTTC, just without the line rental, meaning they’re saving on broadband costs while still benefitting from the same speeds.
Customer 2
Word is spreading: you’re the provider to go to for everything All-IP, and now you’ve got a hairdressing business wanting to make the move. A small salon with one phone line and an ADSL connection to support online booking and card payments, they don’t need a feature-rich VoIP solution, and they don’t have the budget for one.
You can port their existing landline number onto a single line replacement solution, like V-IP, offering a basic IP calling system that meets all their needs, and transition their connectivity services to SOGEA, giving them a faster, more reliable fibre connection that can support their payment terminals and online processes, and even offer guest WiFi connections for their clients.
Customer 3
One of your larger customers, with multiple offices and a warehouse, is also looking to migrate to All-IP. They have on-site PBXs in all their offices but have been using SIP trunks for the past two years. Now they’re ready to migrate to VoIP and they also want to upgrade their connectivity.
With HV.Select, you can port all their existing numbers to hosted seats with no disruption to their operations. Furthermore, they can start using all the premium functions they’ve been missing, including advanced hunt groups, voicemail to email and auto attendant, all within the collaboration app, Cisco Webex, available on both desktop and mobile, meaning employees can stay connected on the go.
To address their connectivity needs, you migrate their existing FTTC and G.Fast solutions to FTTP, giving them the fastest speeds available to enhance their working environment and improve efficiency. By utilising FTTP in their warehouse, they’re able to speed up processes and handle large quantities of data with ease, meaning they can focus on business growth without worrying about technology falling behind.
How will All-IP benefit my customers?
The benefits to the end user are significant, from reduced costs to improved efficiency. Hosted Voice solutions offer lower costs per minute, plus with HV.Select users get 5,000 inclusive minutes, and with no costly PBX, there’s no capital expenditure or extended hardware contracts.
HV.Select is quick and easy to configure with a self-serve portal enabling users to get set up within minutes, with minimal downtime. It’s the perfect scalable solution for growing businesses as users can add and remove seats whenever they need to.
On the connectivity side, Single Order solutions should always be your customers’ number one choice where available. Like the voice solutions, there are cost savings on these new broadband solutions as users no longer need to pay for the underlying line rental, but the real advantages are in performance and reliability.
Unlike traditional copper-based technology, fibre broadband does not inherit signal loss due to distance or environmental changes, such as noise interference and degradation. A purpose-built network designed for data consumption, the fibre technology also offers lower latency, meaning no more slowdowns.
FTTP is the fastest broadband product available today, offering download speeds of up to 1Gbps, however if your customers want future-proof connectivity but don’t want to pay for bandwidth they don’t require, we offer low and medium bandwidth variants on FTTP, making fibre accessible for businesses of any size, with any budget.
How will All-IP benefit Channel partners?
Channel resellers have a once in a generation opportunity to embrace these new products and become their customers’ trusted advisors when it comes to digital transformation. The potential to create sticky customers is huge, as once a business is buying FTTP from you, they’re set for the future and unlikely to look elsewhere. Plus, if you offer a complete bundle of future-proof solutions with Single Order broadband and IP telephony solutions, you can become the one supplier for all your customers’ IT and communications needs.
The past 25 years in our industry cannot possibly be compared with the next, such is the scale of change technology has undergone. The All-IP world is within reach, with just over 4 years until the closure of the PSTN and ISDN. It’s time to adopt the digital solutions and start migrating your customers, bringing them into the All-IP future.
