Small businesses are moving aggressively from conventional PBXs to VoIP, says a new study by Infonetics Research, a Campbell, CA-based telecommunications research firm.

“They are decommissioning their legacy TDM PBXs,” said Infonetics directing analyst Matthias Machowinski. “It's a sign of trust and confidence that this technology is ready for prime time. In previous years companies moved to IP but kept their existing legacy switches on board. This is definitely changing.”

VoIP adoption will triple by 2010 among small organizations in North America, Infonetics's study predict, for a number of reasons including the need for integrated phone systems across multiple locations, increased scalability, operational cost savings, and converging voice and data networks.

“The smaller companies have been a little behind in adoption so now they're playing catch up,” Machinowski said. Another factor, he added, is that there are now more products targeting that sector.

The study also reveals that:

• 36 percent of large, 23 percent of medium, and 14 percent of small North American organizations interviewed were already using VoIP products and services in 2005.
• Next to basic voice, money saving long distance/toll bypass is the highest ranked application for VoIP.
• Organizations spent an average of $47,667 on hosted VoIP in 2005 — growing 34 percent to $63,799 in 2007. Managed CPE expenditures are expected to grow to an average $28,367 in 2007 from $10,865 in 2005.