The market for VoIP in Britain is finally set to take off, according to a Vanson Bourne survey of 3,000 UK enterprise IT managers, commissioned by storage, voice and networking distributor, Zycko.

54 percent of respondents felt there were more advantages than barriers to the adoption of VoIP this year. 57 percent of financial services companies stated that voice and data convergence, rather than cost cutting, was the most important reason for companies to rethink their voice and data strategy in 2006.

Last May Reuters reported that VoIP firm Vonage would team up with office supplies firm Staples “to sell its cut-price Internet telephone service in the UK, as it moved to take on fixed-line giant BT Group.”

Vonage Chief Executive Jeffrey Citron told Reuters that his firm, which until then used its UK Website as its only sales medium, would soon start online advertising and follow it up with advertisements on television, radio and outdoor advertising.

Vonage is bullish on opportunities in the United Kingdom. “There are currently 6.5 million broadband subscribers in the UK, a number which is predicted to increase to 10 million by the end of 2006,” UK managing director Kerry Ritz told Reuters in May.

And this past February, British industry observer Gerry Blackwell wrote that “Tesco - a major supermarket chain that also sells telephony services — recently launched a VoIP service. British Telecom, a VoIP pioneer and one of the largest providers, said recently it planned to start spending more money promoting its VoIP services. Subscriber growth has been steady rather than spectacular, but it seems clear the market is now kicking into a higher gear.”

The Zycko survey found that 57 percent of IT managers across all industry sectors would consider reviewing existing systems in order to move to a converged voice and data product this year. 73 percent would be prompted to review their systems to cut costs, but while budget considerations were a top priority for IT managers in the retail, transport and distribution sector (73 percent), and the manufacturing industry (61 percent), only 44 percent of IT managers in the financial services sector felt that cutting costs was the most important factor and instead, selected convergence as the number one driver for a systems review in 2006.

Whilst a number of barriers to VoIP adoption clearly exist including lack of budget (40 percent), contentment with existing suppliers (38 percent), lack of in-house resource (33 percent) and lack of knowledge about the products available on the market (18 percent), the majority of respondents (54 percent) were resolute in declaring that this would not deter them from reviewing their voice and data procurement to consider a VoIP product in 2006.

The UK industry is still in the early adoption stages. In 2006, deployment will be gradual. Only 23 percent have already deployed the technology; a further 26 percent intend to introduce a product this year, while 51 percent will not be implementing a new product this year.

David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet.

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