System integrator Dimension Data has started offering a managed IP telephony service to enterprise customers.
Roland Chia, national connectivity business manager at Dimension Data, said the customised service would be priced per user and per month.
The aim was to keep ongoing costs predictable as demand for IP telephony grew, he said.
"As we deploy more IP telephony solutions, an increasing number of clients are asking for more than break/fix services," Chia said.
The new service's fee structure would cover plan, build and support phases of a project including scaling up or augmenting an already-existing telephony system, Chia said.
Dimension Data's managed IP telephony service would offer maintenance, support, remote monitoring, management, capacity planning, changes to seats or other infrastructure and management of reception consoles, voicemail and speech applications, the company said.
Dimension Data Australia is a subsidiary of the South African integrator of the same name. It offers a portfolio focused on networking, security, operating environments, storage and contact centre IT as well as consulting, integration and managed services.
Global market research firm IDC has forecast 61 percent of medium and large Australian organisations to deploy IP telephony by 2007.
IDC said Australian organisations were seeing long-term value in increasing investments in IP services and infrastructure.
Some 14 percent of medium and large Australian companies had already deployed IP telephony. Another 47 percent would be implementing it in the next three years, representing about $1 billion in enterprise IP telephony gear and VoIP services, IDC said.
Companies that were not deploying IP telephony had mainly failed to understand the potential benefits, IDC said.