SIP trunk
A SIP trunk is a connection that carries phone calls over the internet between your telephony provider and another system.
SIP is the signalling protocol that sets up, changes and ends a call; the trunk is the standing connection those calls run over. If you have ever moved a business phone system off physical lines, a SIP trunk is what replaced them.
For voice agents it matters because it is the seam where you decide who owns the carrier relationship. A platform that gives you a number owns that relationship; connecting your own trunk means your carrier contract, your rates and your porting rights stay where they are, and the agent is simply another destination calls can be routed to.
Related
- DID (direct inward dialling) — A DID is a phone number that routes an outside caller to a specific destination without going through a switchboard.
- BYOC (bring your own carrier) — BYOC means connecting your own telephony account to a platform rather than buying numbers from that platform.
- WebRTC — WebRTC is a standard that lets browsers carry real-time audio and video without a phone number or a plugin.