Significant growth predicted for hosted VoIP

More companies are likely to opt for a hosted VoIP solution in order to gain the edge in their telecommunications infrastructure, new research suggests.

T3i Group's InfoTrack for Enterprise Services: Managed and Hosted Services study indicated that most companies currently hope to achieve cost savings by reducing IT hardware expenditure.

The firm believes that this will increase the attractiveness of a hosted VoIP solution, as well as unified communications packages.

It was revealed that many IT departments and small business are now favouring external support contracts due to the "time and materials-based" cost savings.

Russell Horowitz, market research specialist at T3i Group, said: "Now that managed services implementations are demonstrating fundamental cost savings, a trend is taking hold."

"We are not surprised that service adoption has increased," he added. "The lure of advanced communications features has driven customers to managed and hosted solutions."

Around a third of the 250 companies surveyed in the research said that they intend to seriously consider a hosted VoIP solution for their business.