Financial services hungriest for IP telephony

Uptake of wireless technologies including WLAN and IP is spreading fastest in certain key verticals, new research has found.

A report from analyst house IDC has discovered that financial services and retail will see the fastest growth on IP telephony in the next five years.

According to IDC, the uptake of IP telephony among financial services firms will come from the need to boost convergence and improve the performance of networked applications.

Government is also staking its claim as a significant early adopter, having spent $100m on WLAN equipment and $118m on IP telephony equipment in the US last year, the analyst said. The public sector is predicted to be the biggest spender overall on IP telephony in the coming years.