UK VoIP vendors urged to 'educate' about UC

The UK is lagging behind the US, Europe and Australia in the adoption of unified communication (UC) technology, it has been claimed.

According to research commissioned by VAR Dimension Data, just a third of UK firms have switched to using internet-based communications, comparing poorly to the 60 per cent reported in the US.

In fact the UK was only ahead of Switzerland in adoption of IP telephony out of the seven western countries surveyed.

Industry expert Simon Welch, marketing director at IT group Horizon Technology Group, said that more work should be done on educating businesses about the opportunities of UC.

Highlighting the relatively slow roll-out of adequate broadband services across the country, he said: "People have experienced a slow service so are not confident in moving into the IP domain in the corporate environment.

"There are lots of resellers in the voice channel that don't have the skill sets to go wider than a telephony solution. They can’t be expected to invest in UC.

"The distributor must deliver an integrated solution that the reseller can sell and then support them on implementation."

However, the research conducted by Datamonitor also suggested there will be rapid take-up of VoIP, with around two thirds of businesses set to use the service within two years.