Daily Archive

Last week Mike Dolan of FierceVoIP wrote a fantastic editorial about the state of the industry and where we’re – or rather, where our industry should be right now. It was so good in fact I decided to write a post about it.

Reflecting on Fierce’s recent IT Expo post, Mike wrote about how the move to 4G will be the inflection point that brings VoIP and broadband to mobile and enabling video calls on the move  – now THAT would be revolutionary. The constricted 3G pipe, due primarily to continued problems with legacy T-1 lines providing backhaul to towers, is holding back exciting innovations in mobile communications. When 4G finally arrives in the form of LTE, every mobile voice call will become a VoIP call.  BroadSoft supports the One Voice consortium that will enable the migration of voice to 4G.

On the wired side, we were excited to see SIP Trunking called out as a critical catalyst for really cool stuff reaching mass adoption. SIP Trunking allows for IP conversion and the delivery of innovative communications services, not available with a PBX.   But, we believe if a carrier uses trunking only to replace switched voice with VoIP connectivity, they will see their revenues erode.  The big upside is using trunking to deliver new communications services in demand by the enterprise market. There are several market trends driving this move by enterprises. Over the next five years, it is believed:

• Enterprise workforces will become increasingly mobile

• Video calling will be widely adopted

• High-definition voice will be the new standard for voice communications

• PBXs will migrate to hosted unified communications

• Enterprises will continue demanding comprehensive business continuity capabilities

Finally, Mike notes that once our industry does migrate to the all-IP networks of the future, suddenly “best effort” isn’t a good enough effort at all, not by a long shot. What has also hindered innovation is the need to ensure the utmost reliability for these advanced services. That’s where BroadSoft’s PacketSmart line of business comes in. PacketSmart allows service providers to remotely manage the end-to-end delivery of VoIP-powered services. To go even a step farther, BroadSoft is working with customer premises equipment (CPE) manufacturers to embed VoIP management agents into devices designed for the SOHO and SMB markets.

So we’re excited to help move our industry through this next revolution of innovation.