Cox Business today announced that it is the first cable MSO to join the SIP Forum, hoping to bring the needs of its business customers into the conversation around SIP trunking. Cox Business plans to add a SIP trunking service to its portfolio, enabling its customers to connect their IP-PBXs directly to the Cox IP network.

“All our efforts are ultimately focused on customers,” said Kristine Faulkner, vice president of product development and management for Cox Business. “As they look at changing providers or lowering costs, they need to know that the service provider can support their needs and the equipment provider can also. So it’s a win for the customer if we can all adopt standards for SIP trunking.”

Cable Labs has been a member of the SIP Forum, which, through its SIPConnect Initiative, is encouraging a standards-based approach to SIP trunking.

Cox Business has been part of the Metro Ethernet Forum, along with other cable operators, and has been intent on developing more advanced services for its customers, which are largely small to mid-sized businesses and larger regionally based vertical segments such as hospitals, governments and school systems.

Cox Business launched a SIP-based service, Cox Business VoiceManager in 2007 in five of its markets to deliver VoIP and hosted services for mobility, business continuity and unified messaging. The company plans to launch a fully hosted and managed IP telephony service in several additional markets by the end of this year.