UK firms adopting IP telephony

Date: 28 Feb 2008

Enterprises across the UK are taking up Voice over IP (VoIP) services, but have yet to grasp a full understanding of the benefits that unified communications (UC) can deliver, a new survey has revealed.

Questioning senior IT managers at 100 top UK firms, communications firm TeleWare found that almost 80 per cent of firms now have a clear VoIP strategy, and have already deployed, or in the process of evaluating deployment.

However, only 16 per cent have integrated voice with other data applications and only five per cent have implemented a unified voice and data communications system, despite the fact that UC can slash communication costs through converged networks.

"The move to VoIP for many organisations is almost taken for granted now," said Lesley Hansen, group marketing director for TeleWare. "The challenge now is building the next layer of useful services on top of the converged data and voice network and the survey seems to highlight the struggle UK organisations are having with the idea of unified communications."

One barrier identified to the adoption of UC was the fact that 64 per cent of companies were found to be using two or more telephony suppliers, with many considering it difficult to consolidate to a single supplier.

track © Adfero Ltd