Nobody who is familiar with IP telephony deployment challenges in enterprise settings likely would be surprised that a recent survey of 1,500 network managers found more than 36 percent of network managers have at some point delayed IP telephony deployments because of network performance concerns.

 

About 61 percent of respondents who reported they had delayed an IP telephony deployment say issues outside their own network presented the most issues with these deployments.

 

Also, 35 percent of respondents who say they have delayed an implementation say a video application was delayed, while 26 percent say a unified communications application was delayed (respondents could indicate delays to multiple services).

 

The study, sponsored by Apparent Networks (News - Alert), also found that more than 34 percent of respondents attributed bandwidth issues at a third-party Internet service provider or application provider as most troublesome for applications such as VoIP, video and unified communications.

 

Some 26 percent of respondents say they do not have the capability to validate service level agreements and only 42 percent said they “regularly validate” their SLAs.