VoIP drives increased business bandwidth requirements

Firms are failing to keep pace with the increased bandwidth they will require in future, according to a new survey.

Research from Omniboss suggests that bandwidth demand will more than double over the next five years, with voice over internet protocol (VoIP) a major factor in this predicted rise.

Nearly four in ten senior IT decision makers claim email and web traffic will be the most significant reason for pushing bandwidth upwards, while VoIP was cited by 30 per cent of respondents.

Despite 91 per cent of people polled predicting their bandwidth requirements will surge over the next five years, budgets are only expected to grow by five per cent during the same period.

Michael Davies, product director for European business communications provider Viatel, the survey's sponsor, told IT Pro: "IT managers need to make sure that they don't neglect their bandwidth or networks could grind to a halt. This could translate directly to a loss of revenue as these processes are held up in congested networks."