Leader: VoIP comes of age

Voice over IP is hardly new. It's been lauded for years as a way for businesses to save money on long-distance and international phone calls while at the same time adding loads of features - voicemail, conference calling, caller ID - for next to nothing.

The promise was evident long before the technology was ready to perform at the levels required by enterprises, though. Poor voice quality and reliability were two of the 'deal breaking' drawbacks for many IT departments considering VoIP rollouts.

Yet recently these hurdles have been overcome for the most part and we're starting to see evidence of businesses taking up IP telephony in earnest.

That's why silicon.com has decided to dedicate a special report to the topic.

Along with reducing phone bills, VoIP has been seen as a way to converge voice and data onto one network. But did this turn out to be a good idea? In our special report, silicon.com contributor Ben King looks at why more companies aren't merging all communications onto a single network.

VoIP has provided a challenge for the traditional phone companies which have had to catch play catch up in order to not have revenues dented by start-ups. Perhaps the best example of an old stalwart embracing the new technology is BT, which announced plans to move the UK to an all-IP infrastructure by 2010. Contributor Stewart Baines examines the plan, called 21CN, and what it means to customers and competitors.

Mobile operators look to be next up for the VoIP challenge, as the technology starts to be used over wireless LANs. King takes on this new trend.

The call centre is considered an ideal place for VoIP - as it appears to be one of the few business environments that requires a flexible and feature-full phone system. According to contributor Anthony Plewes, though, there are plenty of reasons for call centres not to go all VoIP - at least not yet.

Stay tuned also for a VoIP primer to clear up all the jargon surrounding this topic and a feature on one of the more promising uses of IP telephony - portals that bring together various modes of communications such as text chat, whiteboarding, voice and video.

VoIP may not be a panacea - there are many reasons businesses should stick with their PBX or look for a combined solution - but after years of talk it's finally ready for business.