VoIP News: September 2007

Innovations in broadband and communications technology have seen increasing numbers of people doing their work at home, a new report has claimed. Nearly a third (30 per cent) of employees are now homeworking for at least part of the month, with an average of 15. 73 hours being spent away from the office, according to financial services provider Zurich.

Students at the University of Portsmouth will likely be expected to make more reassuring calls back home to their parents as the cost has been reduced dramatically by the installation of a VoIP telephony system in halls of residence. Handsets have been placed in each room and students can also download an application to their computer which features audio and video conferencing using VoIP. In addition, the 'triple-play' system from Inuk Networks includes broadband access and 25 free television channels, including broadcasts in Chinese, Arabic, Greek, French and German to appeal to international students.

Whether voice over internet protocol (VoIP) is set to make the jump into the mainstream or not depends on decisions made by the largest companies in western Europe and the US, it has been suggested. According to a report from ABI Research, these firms will play a pivotal role in future expansion of the market, with hosted services set to be a central part of that growth. Originally, hosted VoIP telephony held most appeal for smaller firms as they rarely have a large enough IT department to cope with running a system in-house, unlike larger firms who may have the budget to set up and manage their own IP PBX.

One analyst has suggested that the use of unified communications (UC) will soon break out of being only used by tech-savvy people to open up to a new audience. Leon Erlanger, writing for InfoWorld, noted that the upcoming introduction of Microsoft could have an effect in bringing UC to the masses and allowing them to make calls through their company's IP PBX just by clicking a client's name in a document or an email contact in Outlook.

Featuring both VoIP telephony functionality and some unified communications (UC) features, software giant Microsoft's entry into the world of internet telephony has been assessed as a "significant force" by one expert in the field. Zeus Kerravala, writing for Search VoIP, believes that the software applications provided by the Washington-based firm may lead to further innovation in the market.