The business telephony industry is
undergoing major changes due to the advent of technologies such
as Internet Protocol and open source software. Traditional PBX
systems have dominated the enterprise market, while Key systems
have been the primary solution for small and medium sized
businesses. IP-based alternatives are gaining momentum, and open
source-based telephony solutions are opening up new markets.
Open source telephony solutions are largely
software-based but require a hardware component for PSTN
connectivity.
There is a continuing trend for telephony functions to
be software-based, but for now, functions such as PSTN
connectivity will be hardware-based.
Telephony has long been the domain of equipment vendors,
primarily for PBX and businesses have come to rely on them
for their voice connections to the outside world.
One of the most important functions n
the TDM (time division multiplexing) world is the fact voice was
is a dedicated service. Telephony systems are built around one
application. Until recently, phone systems were not integrated
with data networks, and there were no alternatives to TDM for
voice.
IP (Internet Protocol) has changed the
business telephony market on many levels. First, it offers an
alternative to TDM for voice, and with it, IP based solutions
for telephony systems. One of the reasons large enterprises are
drawn to IP telephony is the potential efficiency gained from
combining the voice and data functions in an organization. All
businesses -- both large and small -- recognize the economic
benefits of IP telephony
server colocation, especially in areas such as toll
bypass, reduced trunking costs and eliminating MAC costs --
moves, adds and changes.
VOIP Colocation
While traditional telephony systems work very well for
their intended purpose, businesses have paid a high
price. Aside from being costly, these systems are
proprietary and closed. Each vendor has their own
technology and competing systems are not compatible with
each other. Vendors retain full control, leaving
customers totally dependent on them for fixes,
enhancements and upgrades.
IP is flexible, and enables the development of a wide
variety of innovative telephony solutions that are gaining
acceptance among businesses. It is now possible for
businesses to have the richness of a PBX feature set without
paying PBX prices. Legacy vendors have introduced less
costly IP PBX systems.
Carriers are also offering IP Centrex on a
hosted basis to smaller businesses that could not justify a
full PBX system. Getting more features and performance at a
lower cost is attractive for any business, and these
developments indicate that IP technology has matured to the
point where the days of the traditional PBX are now
numbered.
The rise of
open source telephony
Most IP-based solutions have been targeted at the PBX market
for a number of reasons. The installed base is quite large,
and these enterprises have been accustomed to investing
significant capital in high performance telephony systems.
Eventually, TDM PBX deployments will transition to IP, but
this process is expected to take several years.
The enterprise
PBX market is substantial
Especially in terms of the revenue opportunity for PBX
vendors. However, there is another substantial portion of
the business telephony market that does not use PBX systems.
For these businesses the capital investment is not
justified, and less expensive TDM-based systems can provide
the functionality they need. IP-based alternatives exist for
this market, but both vendors and carriers have yet to
develop strong channels to educate and support these
businesses with IP. These conditions set the stage for
open source telephony. Over the past two years, open source
software has gained considerable acceptance throughout the
enterprise environment and more recently has been applied to
telephony. The inherent appeal of open source is lower cost,
and with the advent of PC-based PBX solutions, the
addressable market opportunity is substantial. There are
millions of small businesses that cannot afford a PBX but
would certainly desire its feature set.
Copyright ⓒ2006 VOIP
Colocation. All rights reserved
Why Voice Over
IP?
