A new report from market research firm Infonetics Research (News - Alert) shows that the global VoIP services market grew 33 percent in 2008 to $30.8 billion.

Infonetics’ biannual VoIP and UC Services and Subscribers report finds that, despite the global recession, businesses continue to switch from traditional telephone service to IP Telephony. They’re being drawn to VoIP because of the cost savings and productivity enhancing features it brings.

The report defines VoIP services to include hosted VoIP (or IP Centrex), hosted UC (unified communications), integrated IP access, managed IP PBXs, residential VoIP, SIP trunking and other types of IP voice access, including voice VPNs.

Although business VoIP services represented only 31 percent of the total, this area grew faster than residential services during the year. Managed IP PBX (News - Alert), hosted IP PBX and hosted UC services accounted for three-fourths of the business VoIP total.

Interestingly, the report finds that SIP trunking is the fastest growing segment of VoIP services. Diane Myers, directing analyst, service provider VoIP and IMS, Infonetics Research, predicts SIP trunking will hit an 89 percent compound annual growth rate from 2008 to 2013 – this trend driven mainly by cost. She said she expects hosted UC services to take off as well, with worldwide revenue doubling between 2009 and 2013.

Due to the economic downturn, many companies have postponed or scrapped IT projects for the year, including upgrades to their communications networks. This trend, however, may soon reverse: New analyst reports and a recent article in the Wall Street Journal find that, after reducing their IT gets sharply for months, many businesses across the U.S. have stopped slashing IT spending -- and some are even embarking on new IT projects again.

At the top of many firms’ lists will be migrating to all-IP networks in order to support IP communications. As a result, there will be increasing demand for trained technicians to handle installation, troubleshooting and maintenance of these IP networks. Many companies will also be looking to train their employees how to manage these new networks, so that they won’t be entirely reliant on third party support.

The RCCSP Professional Education Alliance offers a wide range of telecom training courses, for people of all skill levels, including “Voice over IP Foundations,” a hands-on training course that provides essential VoIP and data networking knowledge. In this five-day course, students will learn the basics of how VoIP works, why VoIP works, and how to use it. On the first day, participants will configure an IP network using Cisco (News - Alert) routers and switches, learning IP fundamentals in order to make VoIP easier to understand. The remaining four days will focus on VoIP and IP telephony.

The training is 60 percent practical and 40 percent lecture. The lecture portion uses technically detailed slides that illustrate the subject matter. Text-only slides are kept to a minimum. The practical portion consists of 30 hands-on, skills-building labs where attendees will gain proficiency with some of the most popular VoIP software such as Wireshark, trixbox (formerly Asterisk@Home), Linksys (News - Alert) Ethernet phone, SIP-based ATA, SIP-based Server and PBX products from Brekeke Software, Inc.

In addition, RCCSP offers “TCP/IP Networking,” a five-day training seminar during which nearly 50 percent of class time is spent in hands-on labs. In this comprehensive training course, students will gain the essential knowledge and skills required to set up, configure, support, and troubleshoot TCP/IP-based networks. They will gain a solid understanding of how each of the TCP/IP protocols works, thus giving them the ability to deploy the most effective type of network for their organization.

This seminar also prepares students for more specialized courses in network security, wireless integration and VoIP, as well as for product-specific training in Cisco, Nortel (News - Alert), and Microsoft.

RCCSP also offers “Telecommunications Fundamentals,” a comprehensive course that provides an in-depth understanding of the current telecom landscape and how voice is migrating from circuit networks to a packet-switched network. Students will learn how to evaluate existing technology options to determine which will best meet their organization's data and telephony requirements, from mature digital transport/access services to emerging voice and data services using voice over packet technologies.

All courses include 1-year access to a 50-book Online Networking reference Library with titles specially selected to reinforce course concepts.

For more information about these comprehensive five-day training seminars, including the full schedule for 2009, click here.