No one can deny today’s insatiable appetite for digital communications. When it comes to innovation, the sky’s the limit – but of course, success is constrained by your company’s existing communications systems. And the elephant in the communications room is more like a bull in the innovation China shop.
Managing legacy phone systems including public switched telephone network (PSTN, also known as POTS) requires IT leaders to take the bull by the horns.
- In the U.K., copper-based PSTN services will be retired in December 2025. It might seem like there’s time before the official switch-off, but deadlines are hitting much sooner with providers announcing “Stop Sell” deadlines.
- Maintenance of PSTN systems add dead weight to IT budgets, creating a negative ripple effect across the organization. Up to 80% of technology leaders view technical debt as a hindrance to their company’s ability to innovate and the No. 1 cause of productivity loss, citing poor morale, customer churn, and lost deals.
- Enterprise digitalization has grown 162 times during the last 15 years. In sharp contrast, IT network capacity to handle this digital growth has only increased 43 times. As the modern communications alternatives, VoIP and unified communications as a service (UCaaS) applications require the right bandwidth and network resources to deliver exceptional user experiences.
When the bull is bucking, how do you take control? It’s time to forge ahead with a proactive, holistic approach that fuels the modernization of all communications.
Where Do You Start? By Tackling Your PSTN Inventory
The next question naturally becomes how to enable this change effectively. This is a comprehensive undertaking, and a lot of companies struggle because they don’t have the human resources and IT professionals to do the leg work of migrating communications infrastructure. As a company that provides this expert support, Tangoe’s first step in guiding clients through their VoIP and UCaaS modernization program is clear: conduct an audit of your PSTN lines, building an accurate inventory.
Why? Because you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been.
You need to know what PSTN lines, assets, and services you have and, just as importantly, their related expenses. This is non-negotiable for any communications modernization project. Do the groundwork of cataloging resources in use and where their workloads reside and poof – you suddenly see:
- What you have,
- How it’s being used (or not used), and
- What you’re being charged for – so you can repurpose that spending into VoIP and UCaaS solutions.
You get all the crucial information you need to plan for the future and put change in motion.
But Wait – How are You Supposed to Do this Yourself?
Inventory development and management is no cake walk. The amount of manual work required to find and document every legacy line, particularly without the right tools and automation, is exhausting. This is why so many companies have tapped out of that process – turning to Tangoe’s Advisory Services to update their inventory and clear the haze of their telecom expenses.
Here are just a few of the main culprits our technology consultants assist with:
Outdated information: Clients have trouble staying on top of their inventory as services change (which inevitably and irrevocably do in this rapidly moving space). All too often, these changes aren’t noticed until the billing stage, at which point details must be captured retroactively.
Lack of standardization: It’s almost impossible to clean up your data with multiple disconnected systems, poor recordkeeping practices, and undisciplined processes.
Hungry for Communications Innovation? Pull a Seat Up at the Tangoe Table
When it comes to core enterprise systems, change is happening fast and with the impact of a speeding freight truck. Future-thinking companies know they need a more continuous and complete view of their core, and that starts with telephony inventory.
Instead of watching your services convolute and technical debt amass, Tangoe can cut to the core of your current environment with a team of 60+ technology consultants who are versed in turning 10,000 row spreadsheets into a centralized digital inventory and know exactly how to make smarter use of your IT dollars.
Our PSTN audit is the most rigorous in the industry for a reason.
Tangoe’s consultants dig deep into your legacy environment but all related financial data (contracts, invoices, vendor information) and consolidate it in one accessible place. This single-pane-of-glass view into your assets, services, and utilization helps companies finally have that “ah-ha” moment they need to modernize and fast track digital innovation – of course, while also saving money. We’ll recommend ways to streamline and save on IT expenses, optimize inventory, and drive rate reductions by leveraging market pricing data across hundreds of providers worldwide.
We’ll even negotiate deals for you.
Is your company writing a digitization check your legacy infrastructure can’t cash? See how Tangoe’s professionals can align, integrate, and accelerate your communications modernization program while putting money back in your pockets.