Hello,
The terms IP trunking and SIP trunking are often used interchangeably, even though they refer to completely different things! In fact, you cannot actually compare the two directly. It’s not a question of which one is better at all. Businesses can use both together or chose to implement IP trunking without involving SIP at all.
IP Trunking
The IP in VoIP stands for Internet Protocol. It describes how voice is converted to data and sent to its destination. Trunking is a telephony concept that involves sharing lines between users to drive efficiency. Putting them together gives the basic concept of IP trunking. The term can be used to describe VoIP implementations in an enterprise context.
IP trunking refers to a business solution and concept. Businesses with a distributed or remote workforce can benefit immensely with VoIP. You can access several features that enhance productivity within the enterprise.
SIP Trunking
SIP trunking looks and sounds very similar to IP trunking, the difference is only a single letter. But SIP stands for Session Initiation Protocol and it’s one of many ways to implement VoIP. SIP is responsible for call management i.e. setting up the call, managing the various parties, call termination etc. It is an alternative to traditional PBX systems, not a direct competitor of IP trunking.
SIP trunking is a technical term referring to the connection between the business and the telecom operator. Having a SIP trunk means you get a dial tone, nothing more. It is up to each organization to implement communication features on top of it. It is more suitable for larger organizations with the expertise to manage their own custom deployments.
A business can implement IP trunking with a PBX and media gateway. Or you could use SIP trunks for multimedia communication. As you can see, both can actually work together.
Thanks