Plug-and-play VoIP products with enough features to handle all types of communications are making it easier for businesses to switch to IP-based telephony without disruption, it has been suggested.

Industry commentator Paul D Kretkowski has laid out the arguments for these all-in-one services in a column for VoIP News and suggests that these products can keep VoIP systems simple.

"You can't just flip a switch and magically transport yourself to the world of VoIP simplicity," he writes.

"You're spending capital now to save it later; office services may be disrupted during a transition to VoIP; a consultant may have to help your office's devices all 'speak' IP; and now any broadband internet failure affects all your external communications rather than just your computers."

But he added that to "address these concerns, businesses that just want a plug-and-play system may want to look at simpler, all-in-one VoIP products to get onto a solid IP-based footing".

Examples of such products, which typically can handle e-mail and web browsing as well as VoIP calls, include a VoIP starter kit from Accton Technology or Vertical Communications' recently-released Xcelerator IP router which can handle 24 VoIP phones, allows a traditional phone line to remain as a back up and also provides wireless networking between computers and other wireless-capable devices.