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January 07, 2015

SIP Usage on the Rise as Three Companies in Four Turn to UC

By Steve Anderson, Contributing TMCnet Writer

One thing that was abundantly clear as far as 2014 went was that this was a big year on several technological fronts as businesses began adapting new advances to systems currently in operation. Sonus Networks (News - Alert) recently brought out a new report to help explain what was going on across several markets in particular, ranging from the session initiation protocol (SIP) market to the session border controller (SBC) market and even the unified communications (UC) field.



The Sonus Networks report in question, dubbed the “2014 – 2015 Unified Communications (News - Alert), SIP, and SBC Plans and Priorities: What's Hot and What's Not” report, spelled out how the UC field was growing, thanks to growth in several areas that partially comprised the sector as a whole. First, the report noted that there was a major shift in terms of the number of UC solutions implemented with SIP in mind. Plus, there were clear signs that SBCs were going to be one of the big drivers that provided a lot of the backbone for such projects.

Indeed, the study noted that UC solutions in general were on the rise. The percentage of respondents that either had a UC solution fully deployed or partially deployed went to 72 percent, up from 68 percent in the last study. The rest of the respondents were either currently engaged in planning or were about to be engaged in planning, with seemingly no one completely uninterested. Currently, most of the UC and enterprise voice deployments out there are premises-based, according to reports, with seven out of 10 such projects represented. However, that number is expected to be on the decline in the short term, as cloud-based deployments start to come online. Future development,meanwhile, is expected to be mostly a matter of hybrid deployments.

Interestingly, one change desired, but not very strenuously pursued, is that respondents are eager to move away from proprietary solutions in systems toward more of a standards-based approach. While it's desired, movement in that direction has been somewhat slow of late. But one big change, however, came in plans to use SIP in functions. It was a huge change since just the 2012 study, with many more firms either actively involved in SIP or planning to get involved in same. Even SBCs are a growing part of the field, as 25 percent of respondents now claim to be “extremely familiar” with the capabilities that SBCs can offer users in the field. That's up from just 14 percent in the last study.

What this illustrates, and in a grand fashion, is that technologies that were even just a couple years ago regarded as new and unusual are rapidly becoming a major part of current operations. Technologies from UC to SIP to SBC and beyond are becoming a larger part of operations; indeed, we just got a report earlier today from 3CX about how this was the year that Web-based real time communications (WebRTC) stopped being so much about the hype of new technology and more about the basics of how it was going to fit into current operations. While many companies have already put this technology to work, it was likely to be widespread in 2015.

Naturally, as with all projections, only time will tell just how right it turns out to be. But one thing is quite clear; companies will seek advantages in the market where ever these can be found, and enhanced technology is often a great step toward achieving those advantages.

For more on all the latest technology and trends happenings, be sure to register to attend ITEXPO, the business technology event that brings together service providers, enterprises, government agencies, resellers, vendors and developers to demo, discuss and network all the latest innovations changing the marketplace. ITEXPO (News - Alert) is being held January 27-30, 2015, at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami, Florida.   Stay in touch with everything happening at the event -- follow us on Twitter




Edited by Maurice Nagle
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