IP telephony
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The early caution with which many enterprises treated VoIP telephony, involving years of piloting and evaluating the new technology, has turned into a rapid adoption.
The early caution with which many enterprises treated voice-over-IP (VoIP) telephony, involving years of piloting and evaluating the new technology, has turned into a rapid adoption.
A new report from analyst group Forrester Research shows that 36% of North American enterprises and 32% of European enterprises expect to increase their VoIP spend in 2005. And with only 20% of North American and 11% of European enterprises saying they have so far deployed VoIP, there remains a vast opportunity for replacing legacy systems.
It will be several years before enterprises are fully converted to IP telephony, says Forrester, and the result will be a hybrid environment over the next five years. Most enterprises need extensive network upgrades prior to implementing VoIP, and some remain unconvinced that the predicted cost savings outweigh the expense of updating the network. However, around a third of North American (39%) and European (32%) enterprises are either piloting or evaluating VoIP.
Reliability - above all uninterrupted functioning - and cost were cited as the most important factors to consider, with surprisingly few respondents - less than 10% - worried about the security.
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