While many VoIP companies primarily offer cloud-based services that route your calls through their infrastructure (and ultimately, the public switched telephone network), the underlying SIP protocol is designed to be used for direct communication between two endpoints.
Here’s how a company would help you achieve this:
- You’re the “telecom provider.” Instead of a company providing a managed service where your calls go through their servers, you’d be setting up and managing your own SIP endpoints at each of your two sites. This means you’d be responsible for the equipment (like a PBX or Session Border Controller) and the network configuration.
- SIP and Security: The key to secure communication in this scenario is using encryption. You would configure your systems to use:
- TLS (Transport Transport Layer Security) for the SIP signaling (the call setup and teardown).
- SRTP (Secure Real-time Transport Protocol) for the voice data itself.
- The company’s role: The company’s role would likely be providing the necessary hardware and software, rather than a monthly service for call minutes. They would sell you things like:
- IP PBX (Private Branch Exchange) systems: These are on-premise phone systems that manage all your internal and external calls.
- Session Border Controllers (SBCs): These act as a firewall for your VoIP traffic, providing security and managing the connections between your network and the outside world.
- Consulting and support: They would help you configure the systems to establish a direct SIP connection between your two sites, ensuring the protocols and encryption are set up correctly.
In essence, you are not paying a monthly fee per call or minute to a third-party for call transport. Instead, you are using your own private data network (e.g., a dedicated internet connection or a VPN between your sites) to send encrypted voice traffic directly from one location to the other.
This is a common setup for businesses that want to keep their internal communications secure and private, especially between branch offices, without relying on a third-party cloud service. The initial investment in equipment and setup is higher, but the ongoing costs are often lower, as you’re only paying for your internet connection and not per-minute usage fees.
We can set up this service for international customers, connecting offices located in different countries to facilitate secure and private communications across borders.