How to get an Ethio Telecom SIP trunk

To get an Ethio Telecom SIP trunk, call Ethio Telecom’s enterprise customer service line on 980, explain how many calls you need to carry at once and where your call center system runs, and ask for the current document list and prices. Before you call, decide how many channels and numbers you need, and check that your call center system supports the way the trunk will be delivered. After delivery, test every direction of calling before you announce the number. This guide explains each step and the questions that save you a second visit.

What a SIP trunk is

A SIP trunk is a phone line delivered over a data connection instead of copper wires. It carries many calls at the same time, each one called a channel, over a single link to your phone system.

For a call center, this has three practical effects:

Several calls on one number. Customers dial one published number, and the trunk carries as many calls as you have channels.
Everything in software. Your call center system receives each call as data and decides where it goes: a voice menu, a queue, an agent or a voicemail.
Room to grow. Adding capacity usually means adding channels on the same trunk, not running new lines to the building.

Compared with a few separate phone lines, a SIP trunk lets a team of agents share the same number, while callers hear a voice menu and wait in a queue instead of a busy tone.

What Ethio Telecom offers

Ethio Telecom offers a SIP service for businesses, delivered over VPN and internet connectivity, on a postpaid basis. Source: ethiotelecom.et

In practice, that means the trunk reaches your system over a data link that Ethio Telecom provides or agrees with you, and you receive a monthly bill for the service. The details, such as the number of channels, the numbers on the trunk and how the link reaches your building or data centre, are agreed with Ethio Telecom’s enterprise team when you apply.

Read Ethio Telecom’s own page on the SIP service before you call, so you know the terms they use.

Who to call

Start with Ethio Telecom’s enterprise customer service line on 980. Source: ethiotelecom.et

Have these ready when you call:

Your company's name and the address where the line should be delivered.
A contact person for the application, and a technical contact who can speak about the network.
A short description of what the line is for: an order line, a support line or a public hotline.
Your answers to the questions in the next section.

Keep a written note of every call: the date, the name of the person you spoke to, and what they asked you to do next. A trunk order often involves both a commercial step and a technical step, and your notes keep the two in line.

Questions to ask

The answers to four questions decide whether the trunk works for your call center on day one. Ask each of them, and write the answers down.

How many channels? A channel carries one call. Count the agents who will be on calls at your busiest hour, add the callers who may wait in a queue or listen to the voice menu at the same time, and add any automatic calls your systems make. Callers in a queue use a channel even though no agent is talking to them yet. Ask how to add channels later and how long that takes.

Which numbers? Ask which numbers come with the trunk, whether you can keep an existing number, and whether you can have more than one number on the same trunk, for example one for orders and one for support. Ask in which format numbers are sent to your system, with or without the country code, so your voice menus and reports match.

Private link or internet? Ask how the trunk will reach your system: over a private link or VPN, or over the internet. Ask who provides and maintains each part of the connection, and what fixed addresses your system must use. If your system runs on a server in a data centre rather than in your office, tell them early, because it changes where the link is delivered.

What caller ID will customers see? When your agents call customers back, the customer should see your published number, not an unknown one. Ask which numbers you are allowed to send as caller ID, and confirm that callbacks from your agents will show the number customers already know.

A few technical questions are worth adding, so that your installer has what they need:

How the trunk identifies your system: by registration with a username and password, by your fixed IP address, or both.
Which voice codecs the trunk uses.
How key presses are sent, which matters for voice menus where callers press 1 or 2.
Who to call for faults, during which hours, and how to report one.

What your call center system must support

The trunk is only half of the setup. Your call center system must be able to receive it, route it and send calls back out on it.

Check that your system can:

Register many line identities on the trunk, if Ethio Telecom delivers it that way.
Identify inbound calls by IP address, if the trunk sends calls from fixed addresses instead of registering.
Set the caller ID to your trunk’s numbers on every outgoing call.
Reserve channels for agents, so that automatic calls, such as reminders or delivery notices, never take every channel and block callers from reaching an agent.
Run on a server the trunk can reach, over the private link or VPN you agree with Ethio Telecom.

Halo is built for Ethio Telecom SIP trunks: many registered line identities, inbound calls identified by IP, caller ID set to your trunk’s numbers, and a channel reservation so automatic calls never block agents. The trunk reaches your server over a private link from Ethio Telecom, and Skynet VISP arranges and tests it during setup. Halo v1 connects one SIP trunk per install. You can read how this works on the page about connecting your Ethio Telecom SIP trunk to Halo, and how the server itself is set up on the page about on-premise call center software in Ethiopia.

A test checklist after delivery

Test the trunk the day it is delivered, while the technicians are still on the case. Problems found in the first week are fixed fastest.

Work through this list with your installer:

Inbound from mobile. Call your number from several mobile phones. Each call should reach the voice menu with clear audio both ways.
Inbound from landline. Repeat from a fixed line, if you have one.
Every number. If the trunk has more than one number, call each one and check that it reaches the right voice menu or queue.
Key presses. In the voice menu, press each option. Every key should be recognised the first time.
Outbound calls. Call a mobile phone from an agent’s line. Check the audio both ways and the caller ID shown on the phone.
Callbacks. Make a callback the way your agents will, from the callback list or the softphone, and check that the customer sees your published number.
All channels at once. Ask several colleagues to call at the same time, up to the number of channels you ordered. Every call should connect. The next call after that should be handled the way you planned, for example with a busy message.
Long calls. Keep one test call open for at least 15 minutes. It should not drop or lose audio.
Hold and transfer. Put a call on hold, then transfer it to another agent. The caller should hear hold music and then the second agent.
Recording. Play back a test call recording and check that both voices are clear.
Fault contact. Confirm the number and hours for reporting a fault, and save them where the supervisor on duty can find them.

Keep the results, with the date and time of each test. If a problem appears later, these notes show what worked on the day of delivery and help the technicians find the cause quickly.

Once every line on the list passes, you are ready to publish the number and take your first customer calls.