According to a research report published by Synergy Research Group, the Service VoIP market will be worth $ 2 billion in 2005. The growth of VoIP has firmly placed it as a viable option for mainstream telephony. As companies enter their upgrade cycles, they will migrate to IP telephony.
According to Morgan Stanley, a big share of business outlays is going to be increasingly directed toward VoIP. In the corporate sector, VoIP software and hardware sales will cross $ 11 billion by 2009. An estimate by AMI-Partners puts the spending by SMBs on IP telephony at $ 4.5 billion by 2008. In 2004, SMBs spent around $ 1.2 billion on VoIP, out of which $ 1.1 billion was spent on routers and SIP phones.
A survey conducted by Savatar in which 300 industry decision-makers participated yielded interesting information on the perception patterns in industry regarding VoIP. Reduced monthly bills were cited as a major attraction by 74% of the respondents. Reduced cost of ownership and simplified administration were cited as reasons by 73% and 68% of the respondents, respectively. Bundling of services, such as fax, with VoIP is also a good reason for 40% of the respondents for switching to VoIP.
Major telecom players have initiated moves that will result in reduced subscriber rates. Verizon, for example, is replacing its copper lines with optical fiber networks so that all products finally converge on to a single IP network. Analysts feel the VoIP adoption has gone mainstream. David Lankelevich, eMarketer.com, feels that VoIP will gain mass acceptance in the next two years.
The growth of VoIP is being fostered by factors such as quick resolution of the interoperability issues, increased broadband connectivity, etc. A single IP network for voice and data promises simplified management as there is only a single technology to understand; the reduced number of network elements is easier to manage with fewer IT systems required. A VoIP system helps in performing time-consuming and tedious moving and shifting tasks in a quick manner. In a TDM network, shifting a user while maintaining his extension number entails physical alterations in the network.
In an IP network, a user is not tied down by a physical connection to a specific port. User identification is achieved by the IP address of the phone. This allows users to work with their desk phones by simply plugging them into the LAN from anywhere in the office.
The hurdles to implementing VoIP include ensuring network capability to handle latency-sensitive voice traffic. This can mean expensive upgrades in terms of increasing WAN bandwidth and changing switches and routers. A study conducted by Nemertes Research in November 2004 revealed that the startup costs depended upon factors such as the size of the company and the IP vendor selected to provide the solution.
For a company with 100 users or less, the cost of deploying VoIP can come to $ 763 per person. The costs include IP PBXs and handsets as well as planning and implementation. The cost per user falls down to $ 525 for an organization with 1000 users or more.
Fax is an important service that can be bundled with VoIP. Fax offers advantages in terms of being compatible with several technologies, no changes in format, not editable by the recipient, etc.
The prospect of streamlined and integrated messaging services by deploying VoIP is of interest to a lot of organizations. 58% of the respondents, in a survey conducted by Empirix in February 2005, stated that they intended to run messaging applications on their converged networks.
Fax over IP (FoIP) is easy to deploy for companies that have an IP network in place. IP routers from companies such as Cisco, 3Com, Alcatel, etc are available with a built-in fax component (T.38). bitpipe.com reports:
For smaller organizations exploring VoIP, the big question is “how can we do this without breaking the bank?” As the market heats up there are a range of VoIP solutions with various price points. For such companies also looking to roll-out network fax functionality, a review of the actual cost of a VoIP system as well as a comparison of a boarded fax server versus one that is boardless should be added to the IT checklist.
Read More: Boardless Fax Servers in VoIP Environments