Budgets drive N. American SMEs to hosted IP telephony

Research and Markets [1] "North American Hosted IP Telephony and VoIP Access Service Markets 2008" (written by Frost & Sullivan) finds that North American IP and VoIP access service markets are expected to continue grow over the next several years. The biggest growth has been in hosted IP PBX services with the key value proposition (as you'd expect) in the ability to offer a fully outsource solution to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that lack the money to implement and manage telephony in house. There is also bonus credit given for greater scalability and business continuity associated with hosted solutions.

Despite the improvements in IP telephony, businesses remain skeptical of the technology's ability to match the level of reliability in the PSTN. Another downside listed is E911 compliance issues.

Still, the report sees more hosted IP telephony services moving beyond SMEs into large (over 500 employees) businesses, especially those with remote offices and telecommuting workforces. Incentives include cost savings and the ability to migrate sites on an individual basis through hosted, rather than to upgrade voice infrastructure (and all those capital costs) all at once.

For more:
- Research and Markets North American Hosted IP and VoIP access [2] report brief.

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Enterprise VoIP in 2008 [4] an uphill battle
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