VoIP finally meets early expectations
Voice over internet protocol (VoIP), which allows internet users to make phone calls to each other at no cost, is finally taking off among South African businesses, four years after it became legal to use it outside company networks.
This is the key finding of the VoIP in South Africa 2008 study, released in May 2008 by World Wide Worx.
At the end of 2007, half of all corporations were making use of VoIP, and that usage level is expected to rise to 64% in 2008. Most of these companies are using it within the context of least-cost routing (LCR), which enables any phone call made from inside the company to be routed via the most cost-effective route.
Among small and medium enterprises (SMEs), however, deployment of VoIP is still rather modest, despite LCR having been adopted at almost a similar rate as corporate adoption.
The use of VoIP among SMEs for business purposes rose from 9% in 2006 to 18% in 2007, after rising from 2% in 2004 (before legalisation) to 4% in 2005. This represents an effective doubling in each of the years in which it has been deployed among SMEs.
“In 2008, the expectations of SMEs are for dramatic growth in VoIP adoption, namely another doubling,” says Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx.
“Experience suggests, however, that such high expectations are rarely met off a high base. A more realistic forecast would be for growth in VoIP adoption among SMEs to match the level of growth seen in 2007, i.e. to reach around the 25% – 30% level in 2008.”
EngineerIT
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