In a recent podcast, communications provider PowerNet Global (News - Alert) Vice President Enterprise Sales Matt Ziebro sat down with TMC to discuss, among other topics, PowerNet Global’s SIP services and what services businesses can expect from PowerNet Global in 2010.

 

As far as SIP in concerned, Ziebro says, “we’re seeing an expansion of that. I think the next communications provider service that is going to become really popular in the marketplace is actually a hosted SIP service.”

 

Ziebro says this means a company will no longer buy a PBX (News - Alert) from a communications provider, or some sort of switch to have on premises, but would instead get all their features from “a hosted, ASP-type” setup. Such an arrangement, he says, would let users “buy what they need, when they need it, and buy it in the increments that they need to use.”

 

This has the advantage of lowering the total cost of ownership for the company, and frees them from having to have such expertise in-house or from hiring a vendor to come and make a change “every time they need, like if they add employees or extensions, move desks,” since the communications provider would handle all that as part of the service.

 

Such functions “can really be time-consuming,” Ziebro noted, adding that a hosted SIP service from a communications provider for local, long-distance and data would address those issues.

 

He mentioned that in fact the communications provider does have a hosted offering which should be out in the first quarter.

 

Above and beyond that, he said, the market is so fluid right now the communications provider is “watching it closely to see what are the needs of the industry, and we’ll provide those on a timely basis.”