December 03, 2005
VoIP will grow
The growth of router-based telephony has placed VoIP firmly as an alternative to PSTN. VoIP adoption in enterprises and SMBs is on the upswing. According to the TIA, IP-based communications were supposed to be the major expense for companies in 2005. One reason is that enterprise networks are approaching the time to upgrade and several enterprises are exploring the VoIP option.
A report by the Synergy Research Group released in October 2005 states that the market for Service VoIP in 2005 will be worth $ 2 billion. Factors that companies consider before opting for IP-enabled communication networks include reduced infrastructure costs, reduced total cost of ownership, service levels identical to PSTN service, availability of bundled services such as fax.
The growth of VoIP can be attributed to the increased availability of cheap broadband and interoperability facilitated by IP telephony. Telecom and cable companies are also readying themselves for VoIP. In October 2005, Verizon made known its intention of deploying optical fiber lines in order to converge all products on to an IP network. Convergence is of major benefit to large organizations; the reasons why an IP network is an attractive means of convergence include the fact that there is only one technology to manage, the number of network elements is reduced, and IT systems support for network management is also reduced.
The major obstacles to VoIP deployment include the inability of existing networks to handle real-time VoIP traffic that is sensitive to latency. This calls for network upgrades like adding WAN bandwidth and replacing switches and routers. The cost of an IP deployment is affected by the size of the enterprise and the vendor selected for the job. According to a study by Nemertes Research in November 2004, the cost of IP hardware and that of implementation adds up to $ 525 for every 1000 users and $ 763 for 100 users and less. The report also stated that even though VoIP deployment costs were high, large enterprises could quickly gain significant savings from them that could be up to $ 28,000 every year.
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