Hosted VoIP is Moving into the Mainstream - Comms Dealer Interview

Wednesday, 09 June 2010 16:51

In an interview with Comms Dealer Magazine Gary Pryor, COO Voicenet Solutions gives his thoughts and predictions on the Hosted VoIP market.

Comms Business: What is the current state of the hosted VoIP market according to Voicenet Solutions?

Gary Pryor: In a word – Buoyant.

A few years ago pitches for new business would involve a majority of PBX resellers, and we would have to explain to the prospective customer the virtues of Hosted VoIP as opposed to CPE. Now our competitors in new business meetings are almost wholly made up of Hosted VoIP suppliers.

The Hosted IP market is rapidly maturing. It has moved from being an early adopter type product to a genuine alternative to a PBX system.

One of the forces behind this is the vast ongoing improvements to business Internet connectivity - where the UK is now the leading market for penetration in Europe. We are seeing business grade connectivity products improve in terms of QoS and critically reducing in cost while providing customers with service level guarantees.

Due to the nature of Hosted IP, feature rich applications can be easily added to customise businesses telephony solutions. The range of the quality of these applications is rapidly evolving and taking customers into a fully converged communication environment by utilising everything from FMC, Call Recording and remote working.

The needs of the future business environment match up very nicely with the manner in which hosted IP telephony is evolving.

Comms Business: How has business been during the past year and your projections for the coming 12 months?

Gary Pryor: Currently Voicenet Solutions is experiencing huge interest in Hosted IP telephony.

Our figures are up year on year and demand is increasing especially from the Enterprise sector and the FTSE 500. So much so that our projections for the year are to double our current extension numbers.

Comms Business: Who are your key partners and what is your flagship product portfolio?

Gary Pryor: Our key partners in our hosted IP offering are:
Broadsoft –Software Source & support
Viatel - connectivity partner for un-contended connectivity
BT - Number sourcing IPX Porting and PSTN Traffic
Gamma - Number & PSTN Traffic
Murphex - Managed DSL connectivity

Voicenet Solutions is a single source for all IP telephony products, services and components. Our expanding product portfolio includes hosted VoIP, VNiMobile – a mobile VoIP FMC solution, SIP Gateway, Hosted Call Recording, QoS, Broadband, Disaster Recovery and IP phones.


Comms Business: A lack of in-house expertise in managing VoIP networks has often been cited as a barrier to the deployment of IP Telephony, but it is proving to be a driver for sales of hosted VoIP. How significant is this trend in terms of hosted VoIP uptake?

Gary Pryor: It’s a huge significance. The core of the Voicenet Solutions architecture is that it sits on the fasted IP backbone in the world - Level 3. All IP infrastructure management is a part of the product and service, without which there would be no offering - thus removing that commitment from the customers' balance sheet.

A straightforward mantra though is “Rent what depreciates and buy what appreciates”. Technology rarely offers that option, therefore support is key to any service support company, and having wide expertise in this ever growing converged market is very difficult for many companies and organisations, which is why the Hosted model makes so much sense.


Comms Business: Are fears over security as a potential issue now on the decline, behind other factors such as call quality, reliability, and the capabilities of the network? How big an issue now are these other 'barriers' to growth?
 
Gary Pryor: Call security and reliability should always be considered factors when anyone purchases a new phone system and something every supplier should ensure is of the highest quality. There are so many varying levels of service, security and reliability that ultimately the Supplier of that service will be judged upon before, during and after the contract.

But if you run a “Best of Breed” solution that delivers reliability and addresses all customer needs, then you will ultimately gain success organically.

Reduced expenditure is also a key factor driving demand, with lower calling costs etc. How significant is VoIP's ability to integrate voice with applications such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools and the scalability of the technology in terms of growing deployment?
 
Hosted VoIP offers immense flexibility in that it can accommodate application bolt-ons and additional services so easily. This is the key reason why Hosted services will prevail. Growing demand for more integration and reduction in costs will naturally steer business to Hosted Services. Customers will demand all of their key business systems to integrate and operate in the way they want it.
 
Comms Business: Do resellers in general fully understand the benefits of hosted VoIP compared to CPE? And will customer demand ultimately determine the marketplace for VoIP?
 
Gary Pryor: Generally Dealers do understand the benefits but find it hard to move from a Capex purchase model that generates cash to a revenue based model that grows. it comes down to how they fund that transition and motivate their sales forces. We have different commission models depending on the resellers needs offering upfront income or long-term revenue.


Comms Business: How can resellers gain a better understanding of the hosted VoIP market, to engage and communicate the right solutions?
 
Gary Pryor: A simple answer is to sign up with Voicenet Solutions. We provide all the relevant training and technical support.
It is our philosophy to make life as easy as possible for our ever-increasing reseller base and to aid them in their quest, from the outset to completion to gain bigger and better sales.  

Comms Business: For some time now Hosted VoIP has been heralded as poised for mass-market adoption, are we now starting to see hosted move into the mainstream? What is the significance of this trend for resellers?
 
Gary Pryor: As stated above the market is definitely maturing. Hosted VoIP is obviously a cost effective model and in many cases can actually save businesses serious money not just in call and hardware costs but in productivity too.

With access to better connectivity and converged solutions hosted VoIP is ideally primed to take on the mass market. Voice will purely be seen as an application that sits within their converged business tool.