The voice industry is changing. Again.
If you’re a small ILEC or CLEC running a Metaswitch softswitch, you’ve probably noticed the rumblings: first Metaswitch was acquired by Microsoft, then in March Metaswitch was sold to Alianza – and all this change has raised a lot of eyebrows — and even more questions. What does it mean for the future of your platform? Will support continue? Will there be changes in direction?
To quote The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, we’re in an era of “rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty.”
In the meantime, the cloud migration drumbeat is getting louder. New vendors are promoting cloud voice solutions, UCaaS platforms are springing up everywhere, and the phrase “ditch the switch” is starting to creep into marketing materials.
So should you follow the trend and move your voice network to the cloud?
Let’s walk through what that means — and what to consider before making a move.
What Does It Mean to Put Voice in the Cloud?
At its core, moving voice to the cloud means that the core switching and feature servers that make up your Class 5 platform would no longer live on your own premises or in your data center. Instead, you’d be running that software in someone else’s environment — usually a vendor’s private or public cloud.
This might mean adopting a platform like Alianza, or partnering with another provider offering a hosted switch or UCaaS solution. Or maybe one day it might mean moving your existing Metaswitch software into a virtualized environment on AWS or Azure.
In all cases, you’re moving away from managing your own physical hardware and shifting toward a service-based model.
Why Might You Consider a Cloud Migration?
There are a few compelling reasons to look at cloud switching:
- Simplicity: You offload the burden of managing hardware, backups, and upgrades.
- No more hardware end-of-life: Cloud platforms can scale and update with less physical disruption.
- Support burden shifts: In some cases, cloud vendors take on more of the responsibility for uptime and maintenance.
And from a business continuity standpoint, a cloud-hosted solution may offer more resilience in the face of local disasters or outages — as long as your access to the cloud remains solid.
What Are the Drawbacks?
While the idea of “hardware becomes someone else’s problem” is appealing, it’s not always that simple.
Here are some real concerns:
- Regulatory compliance: As a regulated telco, there are a lot of rules from the FCC, your state public utilities commission and NECA that you may be obligated to follow. Most cloud providers started out offering non-regulated business voice services, and even if they work well from a technical point of view they may not fulfill all the regulatory requirements. Do they support LNP? Can a subscriber select their own LD provider? Can you keep intraLATA calls within the LATA, per NECA requirements? These are just a few of the questions you need to be asking the vendor.
- Cost and effort: Migration projects are not cheap — in terms of both dollars and time. Planning, testing, number porting, interop validation… it all adds up.
- Loss of control: When your core voice infrastructure is owned and operated by someone else, you’re placing a lot of trust in that vendor’s reliability and roadmap.
- Vendor viability: As we’ve seen with Metaswitch, corporate ownership can change — and along with it, the level of support or future investment in your chosen platform. If you own the physical hardware then the worst that can happen is you lose support, but if you’re relying on a platform to provide the service then a vendor bankruptcy or acquisition could lead to your service suddenly disappearing (c.f. Bench Accounting). Obviously that’s an extreme example, and we all hope it would never happen in telecoms, but it’s a new risk to consider with a cloud platform.
What About Hosted PBX and UCaaS?
Cloud voice doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing.
For many rural telcos, the more urgent priority isn’t moving your residential lines to a new Class 5 switch — it’s offering a competitive Hosted PBX or UCaaS solution for your business customers.
Businesses are increasingly looking for flexible, cloud-based solutions — and if you’re not offering them, someone else will.
We recommend identifying a second platform to serve your premium business voice customers — even if you continue to use Metaswitch as your core platform for residential and small business services.
So Should You Move Your Metaswitch to the Cloud?
Maybe. But not necessarily today.
Our recommendation is to move cautiously:
- If your current Metaswitch platform is working well, and has all the features you need, there’s no pressing reason to change.
- Consider running a dual-platform approach — keep your Metaswitch for class 5 and simple business services, but begin offering a hosted UCaaS solution for premium business lines.
- When you are ready to migrate, do it on your terms — not because of vendor pressure or sudden support cliffs.
I asked ChatGPT to suggest a famous quote that would support these ideas, and it suggested the following from Tennessee Williams:
“The only time you should ever change horses midstream is if the horse you’re on is about to drown.”
— unfortunately, Tennessee Williams never said this, so this is pure ChatGPT, but I still like it.
Final Thoughts
Cloud-based voice has real potential — but it’s not a magic fix. For rural carriers, it introduces new challenges alongside new benefits.
At Award Consulting, our North Star is to serve you, our clients, and help you with whatever path you decide to take. Most of our clients are quite happy with their Metaswitch for class 5 services, and we are providing them with the expert assistance they need to make the most of that platform with confidence. Others have launched a second platform for UCaaS, or are in the process of migrating fully to a cloud platform – and we’re providing active technical assistance to help those migrations progress as smoothly as possible. Whatever direction you want to take, we will happily support you.
If you’re not sure what to do, and want to chat through your options, we’d be happy to talk it through with you.
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer — but with the right guidance, you can make a transition that works for your network, your customers, and your future. Feel free to reach out to schedule a time to chat.
