A report by the highly respected McKinsey Global Institute has highlighted just how important internet applications such as business VoIP (voice over internet protocol) and IP telephony are to economic growth.
According to the report, since 2006 the internet has directly contributed towards 21% of the combined GDP growth of the G8 countries and other advanced nations including Sweden, South Korea, Brazil and India. The report also points out that for every job lost owing to the expansion of internet technology, 2.6 new posts are generated in return.
There is also good news for those businesses and consumers actually using internet applications, since – according to the report – they tend to benefit from considerable savings compared with those who are not online.
The direct economic advantage to companies in adopting internet-led technologies such as business VoIP and IP telephony has already been cited in many other separate studies; and indeed remains one of the primary reasons for the continuing increased take up of such services.
Even where the initial expense of equipment outlay might be an issue in IP telephony and business VoIP take-up, this has been overcome partly by the capacity for many companies to simply adapt their conventional private exchanges through the use of relatively inexpensive session initiation protocol (SIP) trunking technology; and partly through subscribing to the services of a remote host business VoIP provider or VoIP reseller.
Many commentators however have observed that in some geographical areas the economic benefits of internet-based applications to both individual users and the economy as a whole have thus far been stymied owing to a lack of quality broadband infrastructure. It is for this reason that both the EU and many individual nations including the UK have committed themselves to ambitious high speed broadband expansion targets over the next few years.
