Small to medium-sized businesses looking at VoIP solutions need to weigh a number a number of factors and processor.com [1] does a nice job of summing up the more salient technie points.
SIP support is a must, both for stock voice and more elaborate multimedia transactions including instant messaging and video. Hosted PBX systems deliver a number of advantages, including a pay-per-seat model, minimized upfront capital expense and less physical infrastructure to deal with. It's always good to think about VoIP as the stepping stone to unified communications.
More complicated headaches include NAT traversing, especially when it comes to a remote and/or constantly moving phone, and choosing the best codecs to fit the task and bandwidth available.
For more:
- Processor's points
to ponder on SME VoIP [2]
Related articles:
Unified
communications coming to SMB [3]
Nearly 8
Million Business VoIP Lines [4] by 2012
Fonality, Allworx top SMB
IP PBX [5] appliance reviews
Links:
[1] http://www.processor.com/
[2] http://www.processor.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/P3021/23p21/23p21.asp&guid=
[3] http://www.fierceenterprisecommunications.com/story/unified-communications-coming-smb/2007-10-15
[4] http://www.fierceenterprisecommunications.com/story/p-f-nearly-8-million-business-voip-lines-2012/2008-05-06
[5] http://www.fierceenterprisecommunications.com/story/fonality-allworx-top-smb-ip-pbx-appliance-reviews/2008-05-05