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Survey: Cisco's VoIP Execution a Mixed Bag
The good news for Cisco is that a recent survey of service provider customers
has named it one of the top five voice-over-IP (VoIP) vendors in the industry,
along with rival Alcatel-Lucent and VoIP specialists Acme Packet and Sonus.
The survey, conducted by market watcher Infonetics Research, found that Cisco
is also tops in brand recognition.
The bad news for Cisco is that survey respondents familiar with the ins and
outs of the different vendor offerings rated Sonus as tops in technology, product
roadmap, security, management and price-to-performance.
According to Infonetics, carriers cited three over-riding technical challenges
associated with their deployments: competition, migration to IMS, and reductions
in capital expenditures (or capex).
"Service providers are operating in a capped capex environment now -- meaning,
generally they purchase equipment only when they need it," said Stéphane
Téral, principal analyst at Infonetics, in a statement. "There are some
areas in which most carriers are increasing their capex, though: growth areas
tied to additional revenue, such as VoIP."
Right now, VoIP is still a work in progress. The top retail VoIP service for
business and residential customers alike is voice-over-broadband, for one thing.
In addition, fully 40 percent of respondents won't complete their migrations
to Class 4/tandem switching until after 2009. This suggests "they have enough
capacity to handle international voice traffic growth," according to Infonetics.
While Cisco was tops in brand recognition, and Sonus was tops in just about
everything else, respondents also singled out specialist Acme Packet. More than
half (55 percent) of service providers are currently using that vendor's session
border controllers.
About the Author
Stephen Swoyer is a Nashville, TN-based freelance journalist who writes about technology.