VoIP growing strongly

More and more British businesses are coming to appreciate the value of VoIP technology, it has been claimed.

Though the UK continues to lag behind the penetration occurring in Europe, uptake of the technology is certainly on the rise, according to the Internet Telephony Service Providers Association (ITSPA).

Chairman Eli Katz explained that, thanks to its low running costs and easy installation, VoIP is playing an increasingly important role in UK business.

"One of the key drivers is broadband penetration and certainly amongst small business," he commented, "that continues to be a very high penetration and it continues to expand on that.

"In terms of subscribers utilising VoIP–centric services, we're looking at about over 200,000 by the end of this year.

"Ofcom's recent statistics indicate two to three times growth…just in the past year," Mr Katz continued. "That's the good news. The challenging news is that overall as a penetration in the UK, we're quite far behind a number of European countries.

"So we are growing strongly, but there are other countries that are already at twenty, thirty per cent level of penetration - in terms of all subscribers utilising VoIP services. But here in the UK it's still certainly in the single digits; probably the lower end of single digits, but growing strongly."

Ofcom research from 2006 revealed that around 60 per cent of the UK population is now aware of VoIP technology.

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