This is according to Chris Wortt – of handset manufacturer Polycom – which predicts that South African businesses will have real choices among telecommunications service providers. <\/p>\n
Speaking at a function hosted by Voice over IP (VoIP) consulting firm BizCall, a subsidiary of Alt-X listed Vox Telecom, Wortt said hosted services, even where they were using Telkom infrastructure, would increasingly be able to negotiate deals enabling them to offer high-quality services at prices that presented serious competition to Telkom. <\/p>\n
“All over the world, service pricing is increasingly in the hands of competitors to the incumbent telecom companies,” said Wortt. “Telkom is going to be driven to become more competitive; they’ll have no alternative.”<\/p>\n
Wortt said South Africa was already one of the top five handset markets in the world in per capita terms and that Polycom, which is betting on open standards-based IP telephony as the technology of the future, was watching local developments with interest. <\/p>\n
“In the EU, 36% of organisations now have kind of IP call control and 47% plan to deploy it within the next 12 to 24 months,” says Wortt. <\/p>\n
“Pure IP PABXs are set to overtake hybrids within two years, and hosted VoIP services are growing in parallel.”<\/p>\n
Wortt stresses that the VoIP business case should not rest on price. “Cost reduction is just one element,” he says. <\/p>\n
“Perhaps more importantly, IP telephony can increase productivity and return on assets as well as making your business more agile and future-proof. To realise those benefits takes some significant upfront investment, but the long-term payoffs are well worth it.”<\/p>\n
“Having just one, all-pervasive, highly resilient network to deliver all your business communications means you get higher return on your assets and just one supplier to deal with – in other words, just one butt to kick.”<\/p>\n
“IP telephony means you’re also preparing your business to deliver a much richer communication environment to both employees and customers,” adds Wortt. <\/p>\n
“It will ultimately be possible to migrate conversations between different media according to your needs, from simple instant messaging chats to full-fledged video contacts. As the generation that’s grown up on the Internet starts moving into the workplace, they’re going to drive demand for rich media communications.”<\/p>\n