Will telephony be the killer application?

While the debate rages on whether or not Internet Protocol telephony (IPT) will mature to the point where it is seen as an integral business application, the market is there for the picking.

For too long people have concentrated their efforts and placed much weight on voice over IP (VOIP) as the killer application.

However, while VOIP will play its part as the underlying technological foundation for IPT solutions, the emphasis needs to move away from the network and towards what an IPT solution can do for your business.

But why the firm belief that IPT might well become the next growth wave of the telecommunications industry? While over 400 million telephone lines and only 11.5 million IPT lines have been sold worldwide, the market is gradually gaining momentum. As businesses become conscious of the concept of voice as an application, there is little standing in the way of an explosive growth pattern set to take off in the next year.

Move away from the network and start concentrating on what an IPT solution can do for your business.

Alain Schram, MD, Avaya

According to research house Meta Group, the IPT market is finally moving from early adopters to mainstream users, echoing my experience in this arena. Meta enforces my opinion that the reliability and quality of IPT is proving to be more widely acceptable, and companies are starting to shift from viewing voice as a pure communications tool to recognising it as a business application.

It is important to realise that while VOIP is an important element of IPT, it is the carrier mechanism that encapsulates voice packets over an IP-based network.

Customers should move away from the mind set where their telecommunications infrastructure is run as a separate silo to their business/technology applications, to the point where it is seamlessly integrated as a powerful business tool within the entire technology infrastructure. If we can get this right, the business case for IPT is instantly won and businesses will be able to benefit from a communications solution integrated with the existing `core` application architecture.

But what will drive the widespread adoption of IPT? In my opinion, business-based voice services, unified communications and even the ability to centrally manage IPT as a business risk within an organisation is key to the adoption thereof.

IPT is an opportunity for not only the business side of the ICT industry, but the user too. The applications which will drive the implementation of the technology exists and the technology itself is mature enough to be widely deployed, but the challenge remains as to how companies are going to integrate IPT solutions into their existing legacy systems without uprooting the existing infrastructures. An IPT solution built into the business system will yield definite long-term economic benefits.

But IPT should not be seen as a blanket solution for an enterprise, which already has a relatively sophisticated telecommunications infrastructure. It can address niche needs within the business environment first and thereafter provide the company the option of growing the solution into other areas of the business. It is because of this that the most wins for IPT solutions remain within greenfield sites, where there is no legacy of costly proprietary systems.

Ultimately the adoption of any technology solution needs to be motivated by the returns, needs and benefits it brings. Telephony needs to be seen as an application within the business application architecture.

When telephony is embedded in business architecture we can start looking at how sharing resources, reducing areas of overlap and exploiting unified communications platforms become a reality. Another distinction needs to be made between unified communications and IPT. IPT can facilitate unified communications applications because both reside in the application layer, making data integration that much easier, but the two are not one and the same.

While IPT is still not mainstream and still attracts some negative perception, it has reached industrial strength. Continued research and development will further enhance capabilities. The technology is no longer lagging. Technology vendors are developing solutions, which curb, deter or quash problems as they arise.

IPT continually brings new challenges and customer demand, and companies are continually investing to adopt and deliver on these challenges.