Small businesses 'should adopt IP telephony or face competitive disadvantage'

Small businesses that need to match the communication capabilities of much larger companies should adopt IP telephony - or face being at a "competitive disadvantage", an expert has said.

According to Robert Poe of Voip News, companies must ensure they get the right system to support voice over internet protocol (VoIP) and must first consider their needs and budget.

They then face a choice between on premise or hosted IP private branch exchanges (PBX), he said.

With on-premise IP PBX, companies buy, install and maintain a system themselves, whereas hosted services are is delivered over the internet from an external provider.

Factors to consider with these systems, Poe says, include whether companies can afford the upfront investment required for an on-premise system and whether their projected growth will require greater capacity, which hosted services can provide.

Whatever system they choose, Poe says, IP telephony can make small businesses "appear big to their customers".

Industry analyst Infonetics Research predicts that the worldwide enterprise telephony market will be worth $11.9 billion (£6 billion) by 2010.