Limited Budgets Driving Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises toward North American Hosted IP Telephony

DUBLIN, Ireland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c89381) has announced the addition of "North American Hosted IP Telephony and VoIP Access Service Markets 2008" to their offering.

The North American hosted Internet Protocol (IP) telephony and voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) market continues to evolve as new market entrants deploy solutions targeted at specific enterprise segments. This study examines various end-user, competitive, and technological trends impacting the North American hosted IP telephony and VoIP access service markets.

The North American hosted Internet Protocol (IP) telephony and voice over IP (VoIP) access services market is expected to continue to grow over the next several years. Over the past 24 months, the availability of hosted IP private branch eXchange (IP PBX) or hosted IP Centrex services has increased manifold, thereby stimulating its adoption among enterprise customers. The key value proposition of hosted IP telephony resides in its ability to offer a fully outsourced solution to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that lack the financial prowess to implement and manage telephony in-house. Moreover, the greater scalability and business continuity associated with network-based/hosted solutions are also driving greater enterprise interest in the service.

However, despite the continuing improvements in IP telephony reliability and quality, a number of enterprises remain skeptical of the technology’s ability to exactly match the level of reliability inherent in public switched telephone network (PSTN) networks. Furthermore, the E911 compliance issues continue to hamper the rapid adoption of VoIP, including hosted IP telephony, among a large number of enterprises. "While the benefits of VoIP are widely understood, the reliability and integration concerns often lead to delayed adoption of the technology by enterprise customers," notes the analyst of this research service. "A number of hosted IP telephony vendors have had to scale back on their deployments during the period 2006 to 2007 in order to address service quality issues."

Need to Reduce Capital Expenditures Stimulates Demand for Hosted IP Telephony and VoIP Access Services

While hosted IP telephony services have typically been targeted toward the SMEs enterprises, their benefits span beyond these two segments to include large enterprises. Various large enterprises (firms with 500 or more employees), including those with remote offices as well as telecommuting workforce, are likely to reap the cost savings associated with hosted IP telephony. Additionally, the advanced functionality associated with network-based voice services, combined with the costly upgrades related to IP PBXs, further increases hosted IP telephony’s appeal among certain large enterprises. VoIP access services allow large, multi-site enterprise customers, which are yet to upgrade voice infrastructure at all of their operating locations, to defer IT/Telecom capital expenditures while enjoying the cost savings and advanced applications associated with IP telephony.

"Going forward, demand for hosted IP telephony is expected to continue to grow over the next several years as enterprises seek to reduce costs and gain access to advanced applications such as unified communications," says the analyst. "The increase in hosted IP telephony revenues is expected to be driven by both the rising demand for outsourced telephony as well as the increase in average monthly revenue per user, as organizations subscribe to premium features such as fixed-mobile convergence and auto-attendant capabilities."

Technologies

The following technologies are covered in this research:

-Hosted Internet Protocol private branch eXchange (IP PBX)

-IP centrex

-Key telephone systems

-IP trunking

-SIP trunking

Important Discussions

- Introduction

- - Executive Summary

- - Market Engineering Measurements

- - Research Scope and Methodology

- Market Overview

- - Industry Overview - The Case for Hosted IP Telephony and VoIP Access Services

- - Market Challenges

- - Market Drivers

- - Market Restraints

- - Other End-User Trends

- Market Forecast Analysis

- - Hosted IP Telephony and VoIP Access Usage

- - Market Size Projections - Hosted IP Telephony Service

- - Market Size Projections - VoIP Access Service

- Competitive Analysis

- - Overall Competitive Environment

- - Hosted IP Telephony Service - Competitive Overview

- - Hosted IP Telephony Service - Vendor Analysis

- - VoIP Access Services Competitive Overview and Analysis

- Conclusion

- - Market Outlook

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c89381