A study conducted by research firm Yankee Group (News - Alert) found that business VoIP market will reach $3.3 billion in service revenue by 2010. Analysts believe that businesses opt to adopt VoIP-based telecom technologies because they provide "measurable cost savings, an excellent converged platform for voice and data, and improves the manageability of communications."

 

According to the study findings, the most anticipated growth in revenue will come in the hosted VoIP market. Analysts believe that enterprises choose this option because it allows them to easily migrate their telecommunications systems from legacy to managed IP without having to spend on extra equipment or in-house equipment maintenance.

 

In the recent DecisionNote, Business VoIP Services Poised for Dramatic Growth, the firm defines the fragmented VoIP market in three divisions: VoIP over VPN, VoIP real-time QoS bandwidth and hosted VoIP. According to the Yankee Group, "large multinational companies leverage VoIP over VPN to eliminate long-distance toll charges for communications between sites."

 

Analysts pointed out that VoIP real-time QoS bandwidth is currently being used in broadcasting and healthcare for real-time voice, data and video applications. According to the study, enterprises can save on capital expenditure on equipment and infrastructure upgrades, as well as on management contracts by choosing to implement hosted VoIP. The firm predicts growth for this segment through 2010.

 

"The growth of the VoIP market has great potential to influence the long-term viability of the telecommunications industry," said Taher Bouzayen, Yankee Group, senior analyst, Telecommunications Strategies United States. "Virtually all major carriers, systems integrators and equipment vendors now offer different varieties of business VoIP services. And those that are not already exploring ways to capitalize on this revenue opportunity need to start now."

 

Yankee Group

http://www.yankeegroup.com

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Johanne Torres is contributing editor for TMCnet and Internet Telephony magazine. To see more articles by Johanne Torres, please visit Johanne Torres' columnist page.