Disaster Planning for VoIP Trunking

While the cause(s) of today’s Florida power outages remain unknown, perhaps this is a great time to ponder VoIP disaster recovery, especially how it applies to VoIP origination/termination carriers. For those of you utilizing some sort of VoIP trunking leased from carriers, most major companies have extensive infrastructure to protect against such outages. However, we’re all too familiar with the generator that had a dead battery. What about the inability to invoke the failover systems we’ve previously set up? It’s never a bad thing to do a test move to another proxy, or to setup secondary and tertiary contracts with voice transport carriers in case your primary fails. I personally know of some organizations that use 4-5 VoIP carriers in addition to their 2 separate PRI and dialtone carriers. It may seem like overkill, but is it worth the extra cost? Finally, while the cost/minute rates make look enticing with some providers, it’s always good to consider specifically what telco provides their circuits, as well who provides their upstream IP connectivity. Just a thought… For those of you using IP-based trunking for voice, what DR plans do you have in place? Are you using multiple carriers, fallback to PRI, or the ability to switch between upstream proxies?