Already using Plivo, Twilio, Telnyx, Vonage, or another SIP provider? Bolna lets you connect your existing SIP trunk and run AI-powered voice calls on your own numbers, your own carrier, and your own rates
You have already done the hard part. You have a telephony setup, a SIP provider, DID numbers, and call routing that works. The last thing you want is a voice AI platform that asks you to throw all of that away and start over. Bolna does not ask you to. With Bring Your Own Telephony (BYOT), you connect your existing SIP trunk to Bolna and run fully AI-powered voice calls without touching your current telephony stack
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Can I Use My Own Phone Numbers with a Voice AI Platform?
Yes, and this is one of the most common questions teams ask when evaluating voice AI platforms. Most platforms provision their own numbers and route calls through their own carriers. That means your caller ID changes, your existing DID numbers go unused, and you start paying the platform’s carrier rates on top of AI processing fees. Bolna is built differently. You bring your own DID numbers from your existing provider, and Bolna routes AI voice calls through them. Your numbers, your caller reputation, your rates
Which SIP Providers Does Bolna Support?
Bolna works with any standards-compliant SIP trunk. This includes:
- Plivo Zentrunk
- Twilio Elastic SIP Trunking
- Telnyx
- Vonage
- Zadarma
- DIDWW
- Any other provider using standard SIP signaling and plain RTP media
Both IP-based authentication and username/password (SIP digest) authentication are supported, which covers the two methods that virtually every major SIP provider uses.
What Does “Bring Your Own Telephony” Actually Mean?
BYOT means the AI platform sits on top of your telephony infrastructure instead of replacing it. You keep your SIP provider relationship, your phone numbers, your carrier contracts, and your compliance setup. The voice AI platform handles what it is actually good at: transcribing speech, generating intelligent responses, and speaking back in real time.
In Bolna’s case, when a call comes in on your DID number, your SIP provider forwards it to Bolna’s voice AI server. Bolna matches it to the right AI agent, which answers and handles the full conversation. For outbound calls, Bolna fires the call through your SIP gateway using your caller ID and credentials. From the outside, every call looks like it is coming from your own number on your own carrier, because it is.
Why Not Just Use the Platform’s Built-In Telephony?
You can. But if any of the following apply to you, BYOT is the better path:
You have negotiated carrier rates. Platform telephony comes with a fixed per-minute cost. Your SIP provider rates are almost certainly lower, especially at volume.
You have existing DID numbers. Porting numbers to a new provider takes time, introduces downtime risk, and can break inbound call routing that teams rely on.
You operate in regulated markets. In India, DLT registration is tied to the sender. In the US, STIR/SHAKEN attestation is managed at the carrier level. These compliance setups do not travel with a port. Keeping your provider keeps your compliance standing intact.
You want redundancy. With BYOT, you can register multiple trunks from different providers on Bolna. If one carrier has an outage, calls route through the backup. Platform telephony gives you no such control.
You are building at scale. Carrier capacity, concurrent call limits, and geographic coverage are all decisions you want to own, not delegate to a platform.
What Kind of Calls Can Bolna Handle on a SIP Trunk?
Both directions, at scale.
Inbound: Map any DID number to a specific Bolna AI agent. Every call to that number is automatically answered by the agent, which handles the full conversation in real time.
Outbound: Trigger calls via Bolna’s API using your DID as the caller ID. The AI agent dials the recipient, speaks, listens, and responds. Works for single calls as well as high-volume batch campaigns.
Bolna’s voice AI pipeline handles speech-to-text transcription, language model response generation, and text-to-speech synthesis within the live call session, with no perceptible handoff between steps.
Does Bolna Work with My Existing Telephony Setup? (FAQ)
I use Plivo for telephony. Can I connect it to Bolna? Yes. Plivo Zentrunk uses IP-based authentication, which Bolna supports natively. You configure the origination URI on Plivo’s side and register the trunk on Bolna. Your Plivo DID numbers work immediately.
I use Twilio SIP Trunking. Does Bolna support that? Yes. Twilio Elastic SIP Trunking uses username/password authentication, which Bolna supports. You register the trunk with your Twilio Termination URI and credential list, and your Twilio numbers work as caller IDs and inbound DIDs.
I use Telnyx / Vonage / Zadarma. Will it work? Yes. Bolna works with any SIP trunk that uses standard SIP signaling and plain RTP. If your provider supports either IP-based or username/password auth, it connects to Bolna.
Will I have to port my phone numbers to Bolna? No. Your numbers stay with your current provider. You register them with Bolna so the platform knows to route calls to and from them, but ownership and billing remain with your provider.
Can I use my negotiated carrier rates? Yes. Your SIP provider bills you directly for call minutes. Bolna charges separately for AI processing only. There is no Bolna markup on telephony.
Can I run multiple SIP trunks on Bolna simultaneously? Yes. You can register multiple trunks from different providers. This is useful for redundancy, regional coverage, or separating inbound and outbound traffic across carriers.
Is there any compliance risk when switching to BYOT? No, and this is one of the key reasons teams choose BYOT. Your DLT registration, STIR/SHAKEN attestation, and other carrier-level compliance configurations stay exactly where they are.
Is Bolna the Right Voice AI Platform If I Already Have Telephony?
If you already have a SIP trunk and DID numbers, Bolna is one of the few voice AI platforms built to work with that infrastructure rather than around it. You get the full voice AI stack (multilingual support, LLM integrations, real-time transcription, function calling, analytics) without giving up control of your telephony layer.
Read the full setup guide at bolna.ai/docs/sip-trunking/introduction
