Infonetics' Scorecard Ranks the Top Business VoIP Providers in North America

By Joe Rizzo, TMCnet Contributing Writer

Every year Infonetics (News - Alert) puts together an annual report titled “North America Business VoIP Service Leadership Scorecard.” Led by principal analyst Diane Myers, this service profiles, analyzes and ranks leading hosted Voice over IP (VoIP) and Unified Communications (UC) service providers in the U.S. and Canada. Service provider scores are based on criteria such as installed base of lines/trunks or seats, financial stability, market strategy, service development and support options.

Some of the service definitions that the report was based on are as follows:

Business IP connectivity: IP connectivity to the PSTN from a single business location and PBX to PBX; includes basic access and integrated access to PBXs and key systems.

Hosted VoIP and UC: Hosted, multi-tenant solution that replaces a premises-based PBX or key system, including value-added applications and unified communications (UC). UC integrates multiple and disparate communication modes (voice, email, fax, chat, etc.) into a unified and cohesive communications experience. Hosted UC aggregates telephony, presence/IM, messaging, collaboration and conferencing into a unified service delivered to multiple devices that is managed and sold as a subscription-based model.

For the 2014 North America Business VoIP Service Leadership Scorecard, the top 10 hosted VoIP and UC service providers have be scored, profiled and analyzed. Some of the service providers that were included in the overall analysis were 8x8 (News - Alert), AT&T, Bandwidth, Broadview Networks, CenturyLink, Comcast, Fusion, Intelepeer, Level 3, Mitel, RingCentral, Sprint, Star2Star, Thinking Phone Networks, Verizon, Vonage, West IP Communications, Windstream (News - Alert), and XO. Service provider scores and data are displayed in charts and tables in the report, accompanied by service provider profiles describing their offerings and analysis of the individual scores.

Infonetics recently released a few excerpts from this report.  Some of the highlights include:

The top hosted VoIP providers in North America are 8x8, West IP Communications, Comcast (News - Alert), and Verizon;

West leaped from 4th place in last year’s scorecard to the number 2 position this year, resulting from strong demand for its Cisco-based solution;

The competitive landscape for hosted VoIP services continues to be impacted by the traditional UC vendors, leading to fragmentation;

Mitel debuted in this year’s scorecard, due in part to its merger with Aastra (News - Alert);

Verizon, XO, AT&T, and Windstream are the leading IP connectivity providers in North America;

The IP connectivity market is driven by SIP trunking and led by a handful of strong providers, followed by a large number of companies competing in a market where differentiation is difficult.

"Always near the top of our hosted VoIP scorecard, 8x8 broke through this year to take the number 1 spot decisively by building on a solid financial position and continued focus on service enhancements and geographic expansion,” said analyst Myers. “While 8x8 still serves predominantly small companies, it's finding more and more success with larger businesses. Meanwhile, Verizon is the market leader for IP connectivity for a sixth consecutive year, followed closely by XO. These two are mainstays in this market, leading in service development and customer adoption."


Edited by Rory J. Thompson

(source: http://sip-trunking.tmcnet.com/topics/sip-trunking/articles/378536-infonetics-scorecard-ranks-top-business-voip-providers-north.htm)

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