A new survey carried out among resellers of business phone systems in the US has acknowledged business VoIP (voice over internet protocol) as being among the key forces behind the major changes they expect to see regarding the scope of their future activities.
The survey, carried out by research organisation ATLANTIC–ACM, found that 72% of those resellers questioned believed there to be an evolutionary trend towards total business VoIP penetration.
Likewise, 70% also said they believed conventional landline-based business phone systems exchanges were also increasingly likely to be subject to enhancements pertaining to the provision of internet protocol (IP) telephony services.
Such enhancements have already been seen with the addition to many business phone systems of session initiation protocol (SIP) trunking technologies, which are capable of adapting conventional phone lines to send and receive IP telephony communications.
The survey found in addition that many resellers of traditional premises-based business phone systems are worried about the impact of competition from those resellers involved in remote cloud-based IP telephony provision.
Almost 50% of respondents said that remote hosted business VoIP provider and VoIP reseller activity was growing to a significant extent and posing a threat to more traditional suppliers.
Commenting on the survey’s findings, ATLANTIC-ACM’s chief executive officer, Dr. Judy Reed Smith, said:
“While certain resellers will claim there is still money to be made in Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS), the overall market continues to decline. End-user migration to wireless, VoIP and everything in between will drive shrinking demand for traditional wholesale voice services, leaving those providers unwilling to deviate from “business-as-usual” in the dust.”
The survey’s findings mirror the general trends being witnessed in the UK and Europe where an increasing number of enterprises are switching to IP telephony and business VoIP systems – in many cases through the services of a host business VoIP provider or VoIP reseller.
