While the consumer mindset associates IP telephony with services like Skype, a new model is taking shape serving Australian businesses. IP Centrex (also known as Hosted IP Voice) services may only boast around 10,000 equipped ends today, but new research suggests this number could pass the 300,000 mark by 2008.

In the last 18 months, five companies have launched IP Centrex services - AAPT, NEC, Optus, Telstra and TechOnTap. In this latest research publication, the Australian IP Centrex industry are profiled.

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c10951) has announced the addition of Industry Profile: Australian IP Centrex Services to their offering

Who Needs This Report?

- All businesses considering IP Telephony for their business communication environments

- IT managers serving the needs of remote offices and/or teleworkers

- Highly dynamic companies with rapidly changing communications needs

Until recently, Australian businesses looking to deploy IP Telephony for their voice services have faced daunting obstacles. The cost and productivity gains promised by IP Telephony are frequently offset by the extra skills, infrastructure upgrades, and downtime costs a self-managed IP Telephony system can impose.

: services are hosted on a managed infrastructure, and delivered to customers on a subscription basis. This gives customers a smoother migration path from current PABX or key telephone systems into the world of IP Telephony.

The Australian IP Centrex Services Study finds, however, that customers still face confusing choices when assessing the merits of different providers. In spite of the relatively small size of the industry today, businesses assessing different IP Centrex services will find themselves confronted with a wide array of Service Level Agreements; and the study finds little consistency in the way carriers set the prices for different IP Centrex services.

This complexity is offset by a highly flexible service model, in which customers can pick and choose from a variety of converged applications, paid for on a per-user, per-application basis.

The study finds that growth in the IP Centrex industry will come from various sources. With over 200,000 handsets now connected to TDM-based Centrex services, there's a large base of customers for whom conversion will be attractive and seamless. The lower cost and greater flexibility of IP Centrex services should open a new customer base in the SME market, which has until now avoided Centrex models. Finally, IP Centrex supports new go-to-market strategies such as resale, which should expose the services to a much larger number of potential customers

IP Centrex is an emerging telecommunications segment, with most of the services now available having been launched in the last twelve months.

IP Centrex services are designed top give customers a smooth migration path towards IP-based telecommunications from legacy PABX or key telephone systems. In the IP Centrex model, the carrier or service provider hosts the hardware and software necessary to implement call features, provides a high-capacity IP service supporting the customer connection, and if necessary implements PSTN gateway functionality.

In this report, Australia's leading providers of IP Centrex services are extensively profiled including:

AAPT;

Commander;

Macquarie Telecom;

NEC;

Optus;

TechOnTap; and

Telstra.

Additional interviews were also conducted with NSC (who offers a facility managed voice service) and People Telecom (currently offering a VoIP Telephony service to the residential market).

The December 2004 Industry Profile: Australian IP Centrex Services provides extensive interview-based information on:

Service providers;

Service platforms and technical parameters;

Delivery networks;

Tariff structures;

SLAs;

Regulatory Issues;

Product Development; and

TDM migration and compatibility.

The contents of this report are as follows:

Contents 1

Tables 2

Figures 2

Report License 5

1 Executive Summary and Methodology 6

2 Overview: The Australian IP Centrex Market 8

3 The Australian IP Centrex Market 15

4 Product Development Plans 23

5 SLAs in IP Centrex Services 25

6 Security in IP Centrex Services 30

7 IP Centrex Services: Migration Support, Legacy Systems Compatibility and Contact Centre Applications 33

8 IP Centrex Services: Regulatory Context 37

9 IP Centrex Tariff Structures 39

10 The Role of Partners in the IP Centrex Market 42

11 Key Recommendations for IP Centrex 46

12 Glossary 51

Tables

Figures

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c10951