Got VOIP?

If your business hasn’t already deployed Voice over IP, chances are by 2013 it will. Or so says market research firm In-Stat, which predicts that an astounding 79 percent of companies will utilize VoIP within three years. Currently, penetration is about 42 percent, In-Stat reported.

The reasons for the uptick in VoIP adoption are clear, In-Stat said: the cost savings realized by using VoIP are enabling companies to use their communications budgets to optimize their efficiency and savings by replacing their legacy TDM voice solutions, said David Lemelin, In-Stat analyst.

It’s a compelling argument anytime a company can trim its costs. But I’m hard-pressed to see exactly what is going to spur a 46 percent increase in VoIP adoption over the next three years. The technology has been around for the past 15 years at least, and it has matured to the point where adoption is bound to occur. But such an increase in such a short time – and a time when budgets are limiting any new technology adoption – seems a little far-fetched to me.

The only saving grace to In-Stat’s numbers may be the increase in hosted IP Centrex. A hosted solution could save a company a bundle in manpower and equipment and offer a plethora of cutting-edge features such as telepresence and seamless integration with cell networks.

In-Stat’s research bears this out: the firm noted that hosted IP Centrex has now surpassed broadband IP telephony as the leading revenue-generating, carrier-based business VoIP solution. And that makes perfect business sense as more companies look to cloud-based and managed services to help them save money.

I’m still a little hard-pressed to believe that VoIP is going to see such a major increase in adoption over the next three years. But I’ll swallow the idea a little easier if hosted services are leading the change.
Am I wrong? What do you think? I’d be interested in hearing your feedback.