How to Save Money with PRI Phone System Lines
PRI telephone line services offer substantial savings for business phone systems, PBX and VoIP phone systems.
Businesses that have more than a few outside lines should consider PRI trunk lines to connect from your building to the local telephone office. Why? With each individual POTS or (Plain OLD Telephone Service) there are termination and surcharges and taxes. After a few line charges there is a savings to be realized in consolidating individual phone lines into a single T1 line that makes digital lines more cost effective than a collection of analog phone lines.
When should a company consider PRI Service
Any company that has over 4 lines and requires high speed internet access is a very good candidate for an integrated PRI. With only 4 lines there may not be a real cost savings but there are other advantages including highly reliable high speed internet access, Caller ID, time of day routing of 800# and failsafe routing of calls in case of emergency service loss.
There are several flavors of T-1 line services to be aware of. A standard T-1 telephone trunk offers up to 24 individual phone lines all digitized and multiplexed into two pair of copper wires that connect back to the telephone company’s central office. Your phone system can connect to a T1 through an integrated T1 circuit card they maybe available through your phone system or through a router that brings the T1 channels in to your phone system as if they were POTS lines. T1 and PRI integration cards are pretty much a standard option for any new PBX phone system such as Avaya or Nortel and you can likely order a plug-in T-1 card for older systems.
What is PRI?
PRI or Primary Rate Interface is an ISDN equivalent of a T1 circuit and it's part of the ISDN or Integrated Services Digital Network specifications. A regular channelized T-1 line and a T-1 PRI line are pretty much the same animal, with one important difference. PRI lines offer 23 rather than 24 phone lines and use the remaining channel to provide signaling and data. You need a PRI line if you want Caller ID for your phones. For Pri service a PRI module is needed for your PBX or phone system.
Integrated Voice and Data Circuits Provide Both Phone and Internet
Another variation is called T-1 Integrated service. Integrated means that the line carries both telephone calls and Internet data. That's right, you can split a T-1 line so that you can have a dozen outside phone lines plus broadband Internet service coming in on the same line. This is quite a cost saver for most small businesses that need both phone and reliable Internet service. Some of these Integrated services are called dynamic T-1 lines because they automatically assign all the bandwidth not needed for active phone calls to the Internet service. Integrated voice and data circuits represent one of the best values for phone service delivering voice, data and features including Direct In Ward Dial, Caller ID, Dynamic Port Allocation, Fail Safe Routing and many other features on a single inexpensive 4 wire circuit.
What about VoIP phone systems?
VoIP phone systems use IP telephony within the company so that the phones can connect to the IP PBX system using standard Ethernet cabling. Many use the same LAN as the company's computers to save on wiring costs. All the in-house calls go from phone to phone over the network. But outside calls still have to connect or terminate to the PSTN or Public Switched Telephone Network. Most often that interface is within the IP PBX system or voice gateway. The most common phone line interface is the T-1 or T-1 PRI digital phone line, just like conventional PBX systems.
Another option that's not quite as widely deployed is to connect your phones to a VoIP service provider in IP format directly from your network. The service provider takes care of terminating calls to the PSTN. The network connection from your company to the service provider is called a SIP Trunk and is most often a type of T-1 line set up to be unchannelized to transport voice packets.
The New Price Advantage of Digital PRI Lines
You should know that Digital PRI prices are lower now than they've ever been. If you're still using analog phone lines connected to your PBX telephone system, it may well be worth your while to convert to one or more T-1 or T-1 PRI lines. If you already have T-1 service, then you should get a competitive quote to see how much you might save on your next contract.
Do you still have questions about T1s, PRI, or Integrated Voice and Data phone Circuits? Call us at 800-335-0229. Talk it over with our technical consultants and get competitive pricing to compare with your other options? Spend a few minutes and you may save yourself a lot of potential grief and perhaps a lot of money too. Simply fill out the form below to see instant pricing on most services. Or call toll free 1-800-335-0229 to talk to our technical consultants about your business needs and receive customized proposals.