Is VoIP still mostly hype or is the technology actually gaining ground as a core telecommunications technology? ZDNet recently posed this question to over 400 IT professionals, who provided input on VoIP adoption, key concerns about VoIP, and what they consider to be the primary benefits of the technology for their businesses.

Clearly, the respondents view cost savings as the most important benefit of VoIP-60 percent endorsed cost savings as the number one benefit-and one third said that their organizations have paved the way for VoIP by converging a significant part of their voice and data networks.

Here are some of the other highlights of the study.

VoIP is moving through the hype cycle
Among our sample:

• Nearly one third reported that their organizations have converged 25- to 50 percent of their voice and data networks.
• About 28 percent have initiated convergence to a more limited degree, covering less than 25 percent of their networks.
• A solid 40 percent have not converged any of their voice and data networks.

Key benefits of VoIP
In addition to cost savings, some of the other benefits rated important by about 25 percent of the respondents include:

• Integrated collaboration features such as videoconferencing
• Increased productivity
• Remote access to telephony applications

Why no VoIP?
VoIP has not yet swept conventional telecom aside and based on our data, has some barriers to overcome before it reaches a more mainstream audience. In fact, 40 percent of respondents indicate that their greatest worry with VoIP is quality-of-service, a concern claiming far more number one rankings than any other named concern. (The next most frequently ranked concern--initial cost--comes in at 19 percent). Following are some of the other issues that troubled IT professionals about VoIP:

• 26 percent rank security as their second greatest concern.
• 20 percent rank initial costs as their third greatest concern.

Once again, the IT professionals surveyed have fewer problems with training or hiring personnel, or the lack of standards or availability of the technology. These issues were consistently ranked most frequently at the bottom of the concern scale.

What's around the corner?
Approximately 25 percent of the organizations surveyed reported plans to deploy VoIP technology within the next 12 months. Another 10 percent indicated plans to implement VoIP sometime after the next 12 months. Roughly one third have no plans for VoIP at this time.

Who makes the decision?
Who leads the way toward adopting VoIP? More than half of our participants place this leadership with IT management and staff. Telecom management/staff would make the decision in only 18 percent of the organizations we polled. About 10 percent of organizations indicated that their CEO or CIO will lead the way for their organizations to adopt VoIP.

Who's minding the store?
Businesses and consumers are well aware of the regulations that dictate how telecom providers operate their businesses. In contrast, at this juncture VoIP is not subject to such regulations. But does anybody care? Our data confirms that people do take an interest in how VoIP will be treated by regulators, but 40 percent of respondents prefer that it remain unregulated. We found that only 24 percent are in favor of regulating VoIP, while a large portion of those surveyed (36 percent) haven't yet decided on the matter.