In December 2020, I bought a house.
And for once in my life, I timed it just right — December 2020 was the absolute low point of mortgage interest rates. We locked in a fixed-rate mortgage at a very low rate, and boy am I thankful when I look at mortgage rates today. Even if things improve in the future, we have a strong financial incentive to stay put. We’re not moving unless we have a really good reason.
I imagine some of you reading this might feel similarly about your voice platform.
If you purchased your softswitch outright — maybe with perpetual licenses and hardware that you already own — then the economics are in your favor. It doesn’t cost much to keep running the system you’ve got. The longer you use it, the more that upfront investment pays off.
So many of you should simple stick with what you have. But…
Dreams of the Mountains
Even though we got a great deal on our current house, I still sometimes find myself dreaming. Wouldn’t it be nice to live somewhere more scenic? Somewhere near the mountains, with better trails and bigger views?
That’s the other side of this equation.
You may love your current voice platform, but perhaps it lacks the features your customers are asking for, or you’re looking for something that’s easier to manage and maintain.
That doesn’t mean you should make a move — but it does mean it’s worth exploring.
Proceed With Caution
If you do decide to evaluate a new voice platform, you should do so with open eyes and ask a lot of questions.
Salespeople are good at what they do. They’ll tell a great story. They’ll have sleek marketing materials. They might even show you a product demo that looks polished and elegant.
But before you hand over a pile of money — or commit to a multi-year transition project — you’ll want to dig deeper.
Here are some steps we recommend when comparing platforms:
1. Do Your Due Diligence
Get your engineering team involved early. Let them ask the tough questions. We’re talking about long lists of features to verify and probing inquiries about the redundancy model and uptime statistics.
If the new platform has a different core focus (e.g. it’s more UCaaS than Class 5), then make sure to focus your questions around the likely weaknesses. How does this cloud-based platform handle LNP, create intra-LATA CDRs and allow subscribers to select their own LD carrier?
2. Request Demonstrations — With Your Use Cases
Don’t just accept a general product tour. Ask for a targeted demonstration of the features that matter most to you and your customers.
You’re looking for functionality and usability. If the feature exists but is hard to configure, that’s still a problem.
3. Talk to Reference Customers
Any platform can show you one or two happy clients — but you should ask for multiple references that are similar to your organization:
- Similar size
- Similar network architecture
- Similar regulatory environment (rural ILEC, for example)
- Similar business model (residential, business, or both)
Ask them what the migration was like. What support did they receive? What’s the day-to-day management like now? Would they make the same decision again?
4. Get a Trial Account (and Actually Use It)
If possible, ask for a test environment where your team can set up users, configure phones, and place calls.
You’ll learn far more by clicking around in the system than by watching a sales demo. You’ll also get a sense of how intuitive (or frustrating) the platform is.
5. Understand Migration Support
If you do choose to switch platforms, ask detailed questions about the migration process:
- Who provides professional services?
- How are translations and provisioning migrated?
- Will your team get training?
- What help is available post-deployment?
And yes — ask for references here too. A poorly managed migration can cause major disruption, and in some cases, customer churn.
How We Can Help
Most vendors are good at setting up their own platform, but things get much harder when you’re integrating that platform into a multi-vendor network. At Award Consulting, we’ve supported many clients through these kinds of migrations – whether that’s replacing a legacy TDM-based switch (hello DMS-100!) with a Metaswitch, or adding a cloud-based voice platform into a network that already has a Metaswitch, plus a new TelcoBridges Tmedia media gateway for good measure.
As always, our focus is on serving you and your needs. As you may have noticed, we think the Metaswitch is a great class 5 switch, and we would encourage you to keep it in your network as long as possible – but we also know that it has some limitations, so if you’re looking to add a new platform we would love to help you in that process, and have experience working with a variety of vendors over the past few years.
Final Thoughts
Changing voice platforms is like moving house: exciting in theory, exhausting in practice, and full of hidden costs. So take your time. Don’t let the sales team sweep you off your feet. Ask hard questions. Test everything.
And if you already have a platform that works — and a mortgage-like license that locks in your costs — you might decide that your current setup still feels like home.
But if you do decide to move… make sure it’s to somewhere with a mountain view.
