• LAN telephony growth as a result of increasing deployment of IP PBXs
• Technology-based corporate business users
• Business with large numbers of branch offices
• Highly mobile and communications reliant consumers

TekPlus believes that moving into new market areas will not be enough for IP telephony service providers to maintain growth. Companies that do not presently supply IP telephony services are expected to have a major impact on service creation, development, delivery and deployment, see figure 1.3. Gareth Williams states, 'market development will provide new opportunities for companies like Microsoft or HP to deliver IP telephony services, in order to deliver a complete communications package to their end-users. The question for present day suppliers will be whether they can meet the demands of such companies, if so they have a viable business plan; if not they are a potential acquisition target.'

The up-shot of the market is that IP telephony service providers have a lot to learn from the previous mistakes of fixed and wireless communications markets. Should IP telephony service providers chose the challenge of maintaining a market presence then they will need to:

• become more open
• work more closely with telcos
• target regions and countries with individual market strategies
• develop the right content, as part of an ecosystem partnership and JAPA strategies
• target the business end-user market
• think beyond the IP telephony market and look to all markets impacted by IP telephony

The wholesale and retail markets will continue to grow and IP telephony service providers in each market have the opportunity to attack this growth. Dr.Mitul Mehta concludes, 'the new entrants will push IP telephony service providers to develop niche sub-segment products and services for the end-user market, understanding their requirements and an emphasise on customer service will be the key.'