Small Business Telecom 2008

2007 was an interesting year for telephony in the SMB space. We saw the ongoing marriage of Voice over IP services with customer premises equipment, which I attribute to reliability and quality having finally passed a tipping point. Small Business owners are always looking to reduce costs, and are often willing to take risks on new technology faster than their larger brethren. We all know that VoIP still isn’t a completely mature technology, but the ROI is so compelling that it is hard to resist deploying it in some capacity.

The tipping point is best represented by one solution – the hybrid.

Hybrid analog/VoIP PBXs are in demand. Why? Because not everyone is ready to give up their connections to the traditional telephone system. For some businesses, VoIP doesn’t offer a significant enough cost saving to make it worth the risk to completely switch. Others see it as complex and don’t feel confident in their ability to use this new technology. A hybrid solution lets those businesses experiment with VoIP, while keeping a traditional phone network safety net.

VoIP is about more than just transporting voice. We’re seeing the natural evolution that involves the integration of voice with applications. Social networking, conference collaboration, presence and routing applications, voice networking while gaming and click-to-dial from a web page are all examples of applications that make effective use of VoIP.

As we move further into 2008, I, and many others, expect analog trunking will continue to decline. Most of this can be attributed to the incumbent phone companies not offering any new “bang for your buck” features in their existing service packages. New competitors are entering the market every day with very competitive long distance and local service packages that come with all the necessary features included. Eventually, the incumbent providers are going to reach a point where they have to drop prices in order to compete and survive. When that happens, it will be interesting to see how that ripples across the industry. Will it lead to the demise of some of the newer VoIP service providers, or will it simply put the two technologies on a level playing field when it comes to price? I expect the answer to that question to reveal itself as this year rolls on.

I believe we’ll see a continued evolution as 2008 rolls along, one that will see both traditional and VoIP service providers strive to meet the changing demands of the market. I also believe that it is the hybrid systems, especially those that are designed to be owner-friendly enough that a small business-person can set up and maintain them, that are best suited to take advantage of this evolution. They provide maximum flexibility, and give businesses the ability to take advantage of all the benefits inherent in each technology.

source: Eric Ramsden of TalkSwitch