Business IP PBX Still Booming

Overall enterprise telephony revenue is on track for another year of double-digit growth, say analysts at Infonetics Research. In the first quarter of this year, total worldwide business phone system sales inched up 1 percent sequentially and are up 8 percent from the first quarter a year ago. Sales of pure IP PBX (private branch exchange) systems, in particularly, increased 76 percent for the first quarter of this year over the same period in 2006, and Infonetics forecasts the percentage of small organizations using VoIP will more than triple, while the percentage of medium and large organizations using VoIP will roughly double between 2006 and 2011. Overall, the business telephony market will total $11.9 billion in 2010, Infonetics researchers estimate, with the average percent of total voice product expenditures that is spent by respondents on VoIP products—IP PBXs, IP phones, etc.— growing from 41 percent in 2006 to 58 percent in 2008. Currently, hybrid PBXs lead the list of installed IP PBXs, but the use of TDM (time division multiplex) PBXs and key systems are expected to decline by as much as half by 2009, and this slack will be picked up by pure IP PBXs, Infonetics predicts. Avaya and Nortel are the most commonly used manufacturers of TDM PBXs, and Cisco is the clear leader in VoIP products, says the research firm.

Incidentally, close to half of respondents aren’t encrypting VoIP media or signaling, but those numbers drop to less than a quarter by 2009, as more respondents begin to use IPSec for encryption, says Infonetics. Meanwhile, the number-one reason given by organizations for not deploying VoIP is that their existing phone systems already do what they need them to do. IP Briefly Noted LiveVox announced the availability of its multi-site contact center management offering. Featuring built-in agent presence and role-based security, the LiveVox Voice Portal 2.0 now provides executive management with direct access to agent, campaign and call activity details across an unlimited number of contact centers. Role-based security ensures that only approved management is able to update and change specific information including campaign parameters and execution across multiple sites. CommPartners has become the first hosted service provider with national coverage to offer general availability of Linksys One 2.0, the comprehensive hosted IP communications platform for small business customers.

More than 6 million VoIP telephony lines deployed by operators around the world are managed by Thomson’s Cirpack Class-5 voice switches. This represents 50 percent growth in users in just six months. Allworx is offering a new five-year extended warranty program for its VoIP phones and VoIP systems, representing one of the most comprehensive warranties available to the SMB marketplace. Allworx also has revamped its return process to simplify return requests. The optional five-year warranty is available through Allworx resale partners. Consumers searching online at maps.live.com for businesses such as area restaurants, hotels or car dealerships can now click to make free PC-to-phone calls to many advertisers, using Verizon’s Business IP network. Windows Live Call for Free from Microsoft now uses Verizon’s VoIP capabilities and global network to give consumers a convenient and no cost way to find services they want and need.