He adds, "It's clear everybody will be IP eventually, but there is noreason to drop what you're doing today or to shorten the life of anexisting PBX. The roll-out will take a relatively long time."

Roberta Fox, president of Fox Group Consulting, Markham, Ont, is alsosceptical of any across-the-board rush to migrate to IP voice. "Inmost cases, there are no compelling financial reasons for doing it,"she argues. Current discounts for telco voice circuits make itunlikely that IP voice would generate significant savings. There areexceptions, though, she notes - for example, aggregating long-distancetraffic to a centralized call centre over an IP backbone network.

The fact that many vendor proponents come from a data background andhave to fight for credibility in the voice arena is another hold-back.Now that some telcos in Canada are getting behind IP with serviceofferings, companies may have more confidence to move ahead.