Making the most of IP networked services

And, looking further into the future, the already major impact these innovations are making as standalone technologies is likely to become even more significant as they merge to offer enterprises the dual benefits of Voice over wireless Lans.

With quality of service embedded in the IP network, firms can also consolidate voice and video traffic on the IP network thereby eliminating many dedicated PSTN and ISDN circuits. All of this consolidation results in cost savings for enterprises.

Applications such as telephony, audio and video conferencing, unified communications and contact centre applications all use the IP network to transport audio and video traffic over a common network.

Cost reduction comes through PBX, audio conferencing, and video conferencing system consolidation of a similar magnitude to server consolidation, while additional security is provided by VPN applications.

Industry analyst the Dell'Oro Group has found that many businesses have moved beyond experimenting with IP-based voice technology and are now incorporating it into the fabric of their voice and data network strategies.

"The conversion to VoIP is the dominant factor in the enterprise voice market over the next several years," said Steve Raab, director of IP telephony research at Dell'Oro Group.

Analysts at Gartner, meanwhile, have suggested that network managers must start shifting their focus to technologies that bring new capabilities to the infrastructure and provide services to a distributed workforce, rather than just upgrading to bigger and faster Lans.

"Astute network managers will focus their attention on the upper layers of the stack, and look to security, data control, application optimisation and mobility services as key features that will benefit the organisation far more than installing gigabit Ethernet for all desktops," said Mark Fabbi, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.