Where is Your Demarc?

As enterprises make the transition towards hosted voice services, there is one critical question every enterprise must ask their Service Provider. Where is my Demarc? Demarc is telecom speak for demarcation point of service, where the service starts and stops as far as the service provider responsibility is concerned.

For example, if you have a PRI /T-1 installed for voice communications, the demarc is at the Smart Jack, the physical connection your device plugs into for service. The service provider can test all the way up to this physical interface when there is a problem. Anything after the physical interface is the customers problem. There is a clear “demarc” of where the service responsibility starts and stops for each party.

Now that the “Cloud” has been invented, enterprises are migrating everything to it as continued innovation brings costs down and availability of services due to cheaper more accessible bandwidth. On the other hand, service levels and responsibilities have shifted away from the enterprise premise. Everything is moving towards “as a Service” model whether it be software, computing and in this specific case voice.

Enterprises that maintain an on-premise PBX of some kind usually are only dealing with SIP trunks. They have an Session Boarder Controller(SBC) or Gateway in place to terminate the connection. Conversely, a hosted voice service typically does not have any hardware in place other than the phones themselves. So where is the Demarc for the voice services in either case?

The answer to that question is 100% not at the enterprise location. Unless you have subscribed to a managed service and there is hardware installed at the premise by the provider. You will be surprised to find that the actual Demarc for services is usually not even in the same city where the service is being provided.

Our ManagEdge Service is the answer to this problem for enterprise voice services. Take back control of the Demarc with one simple all-inclusive program. The hardware provides the protection and Quality of Service for your voice traffic while the management portal provides the tools to troubleshoot along with reporting and analytics to know what is really happening in your network.

Take Back Control of Your Demarc

 

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