Enterprises wake up to the business benefits of VoIP

Although free calling is the most hyped benefit of VoIP, along with fairly linear initial overheads, the technology opens up the opportunity to deploy a multitude of new features not available on traditional telephone services. These include the ability to forward voice messages to email accounts and have them played back through a PC; access to voicemail via the internet; more complex address books and contact lists; call diversion or forwarding to any other number; and the ability to have more than one number ring at once. All this is in addition to services typical to traditional phone lines, such as conference calling, call waiting, caller display and faxing.

Furthermore, with a recent shift in the industry to the supply of VoIP over Wi-Fi services, you can also take your phone number and free calling package anywhere, so long as you have an internet connection.

According to a recent study by Infonetics Research, stellar growth in this area is being driven by the growing availability of wireless VoIP handsets from the likes of Nokia, and voice-enabling wireless infrastructure.

“While increasing employee mobility and productivity are currently the top reasons for deploying WLANs, voice over WLAN is a growing driver and is potentially disruptive,” said Infonetics Research analyst Richard Webb.

“The traditional model of time- and distance-based pricing for voice calls is being eroded by VoIP, and as VoIP goes wireless, it presents an opportunity for enterprise users and a challenge for operators,” he added.

Although most enterprises are still clinging to their trusty and traditional circuit switched networks for handling voice traffic, their grip is slackening on legacy technology. The bottom line is that organisations are seeing IP telephony as a mature technology that is safe to deploy. Clearing this one hurdle, and moving from immaturity to maturity, has set future adoption on an upward growth curve.