"Market awareness, the perception that it’s only a viable solution for large, corporate customers, limited push through the channel, and, perhaps most importantly, waiting for carriers put the infrastructure in place to make it a reliable alternative. Service Providers need to know how to handle questions from customers and have the security that their underlying network infrastructure is capable of carrying VoIP traffic in the future, however in our opinion it is still not a commercially viable solution for the mass market at the moment, unless you operate at the high end.
Is there a healthy value-added applications market in the sector? Absolutely, in fact it’s applications that will drive IP sales. Traditionally IP has been heralded as the free telephony solution. This is not what will drive business going forward as it needs to be a commercially attractive solution in order to gain the necessary investment. While it’s true customers will benefit from some cost reductions, the true value of IP telephony comes from providing value added services through to the customers desktop and thus driving greater business efficiencies. Giving customers the ability to manage adds, moves and changes themselves, and greater capabilities such as voicemail to mail functionality."