Growing acceptance of VoIP contributed to a boost in shipments of telephony lines in 2005, according to a new report.

Business research firm Frost & Sullivan found that the European business telephony market shipped over 21 million lines in 2005, over 80 per cent of which were capable of handling internet protocol (IP) communications.

Frost & Sullivan analyst Shomik Banerjee said that the growth had been driven by new installations of VoIP replacements for old systems.

"European scepticism toward IP telephony is gradually on the wane and, led by multinationals headquartered in the United States, enterprises have started deploying IP telephony on a larger scale," he said.

Mr Banerjee also noted that European telephony vendors are bringing in new technology standards, such as session initiation protocol, as well as beginning to focus on software applications, rather than hardware solutions - although installing private branch exchanges remains a key concern.