Use of VoIP solutions 'is increasing'

A growing number of firms are ditching traditional phone lines in favour of using the latest voice over internet protocol (VoIP) solutions, if a new report is to be believed.

The survey, conducted by US-based news, reviews and blog site WhichVoIP, found that the number of calls being made via the technology is on the rise.

In total, it noted that 75 per cent of all international communications are hosted by VoIP solutions rather than more traditional infrastructure.

This is the result of a large number of company bosses realising the benefits of switching to VoIP, including the affordable nature of calls and the fact it does not require in-house PBX hardware on which to run.

Firms can also enjoy a lack of maintenance requirements, which can often be a time-consuming feature of using existing telephony centres.

Researchers also took the opportunity to question businesses on what they would like to see emerge in the future in the VoIP market.

Almost 80 per cent suggested the price of the technology remains their number one focus and more than 60 per cent revealed they are interested in any value-adding features that could be attached to the solutions.

Mike Bragg, chief financial officer at the website, said: "This is real data from customers telling us what they would like from providers - not only in terms of service, but also in terms of the sales process. Business VoIP service providers who seek business customers can benefit greatly from the information our survey revealed."

Anybody with doubts remaining about the implementation of VoIP solutions should simply remind themselves that it will reduce costs and make operations easier, by allowing calls to be diverted to mobiles.

ABI Research recently found mobile features such as video calls and shared services will continue to succeed but will not overtake voice telephony as the top form of communication.