One of those triggers is the obsolescence of existing private branch exchanges (PBXs). The last big surge in the PBX market was in the late-1990s, when organizations upgraded their phone systems for Y2K compliance. That means that there are a whole lot of PBXs nearing the end of their five-to-seven-year life cycles and ready for upgrades, and whole lot of equipment leases are ready to expire.
"We see PBXs coming off lease at the same moment that businesses are starting to understand VoIP and see it as a viable technology," Koehler says. "They're reading about it, and they're seeing their clients do it, so it's not such a strange idea when it comes to upgrading their telephone systems."
Moreover, any company shopping for a PBX today will find it hard to buy a time division multiplexing (TDM) PBX anyway. "If you're buying a PBX now, a vendor will quote you an IP system rather than a TDM system," Machowinski says. "At most, you'll be looking at a hybrid PBX, but either way, you'll be getting IP."
Is It Time To Buy?
Whether this is the time to buy, obsolescence notwithstanding, is another thing midsized companies need to consider. An assessment of resources, infrastructure and technology is absolutely essential. You can't just plug in an IP PBX and expect it to work. In the best of all possible worlds, a company should pilot any potentially disruptive technology -- and changing something as mission critical as a phone system can be disruptive. But how do you pilot a phone system?
"Some companies have implemented small systems in small call centers or a help desk, often using an open source product like the Asterisk PBX," Goodall says. "You can experiment like this, to do a very limited pilot and see what intellectual and technical resources you have in-house."
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
