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2005-10-11 - SMME not logging into VoIP

Johannesburg - In contrast to the corporate environment, small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) will shy away from Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) in 2005, World Wide Worx said on Thursday citing the latest findings from the VoIP in South Africa 2005 survey it conducted recently. World Wide Worx reported that 78% of corporations it surveyed would be using the technology by the end of 2005 while almost half of these entities had adopted it in 2004.

Against this background, however, less than 2% in the small business sector had implemented VoIP last year.

While the number of implementations will enjoy a similar rate of increase as in the corporate environment in 2005 - to double of what it was in 2004 - this still amounts to less than 4% of small enterprise intending to use the technology.

After interviewing decision-makers at more than 1 000 SMMEs - about their adoption and expectations of the technology and least-cost routing (LCR) - a completely different picture emerged around LCR.

Some 41.25% of the small business respondents make use of LCR - a system used for cutting telephone costs by diverting outgoing calls over the cheapest available route.

However, LCR will drop slightly in usage among this sector - given that it is expected to lose some of its users in 2005.

More than half of the respondents were also unable to give a rating for the importance of LCR in general. Of those that could give a rating, almost three quarters regarded it as somewhat important or very important.

It comes down to education of the market. VoIP is an emerging technology, having been held back by telecommunications regulations until deregulation occurred on February 1, World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck said.

Unless its value is more clearly spelled out to SMMEs now, the service providers in both VoIP and least-cost routing will have to wait until 2006 for a boom in demand from small business.

Telecommunications analyst John Joslin said: As with VoIP among corporates, least-cost routing is still an emerging technology among SMEs, and demands the same huge need for education around options, applications, implementation strategy and cost-benefit issues.

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