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.