SMBs distrust VoIP provider security

A report [PDF] from Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) and conducted by IDC reveals that SMBs do not trust the security offered by VoIP providers. Only 50% of SMBs thought that VoIP providers had adequate security, while 82% of those surveyed trusted the security offered by traditional PSTN providers.

One of the major issues that businesses have with a reliance on Voice over IP is that when a voice network is compromised, communication with their customers is affected. Many SMBs reflected on VoIP negatively because of this and compared this relative lack of security to the good old PSTN that doesn’t let them down, even if their network goes down.

“People are much more sensitised to disruptions in voice communications than they are with data communications. If the delivery of an email is delayed by 30 seconds, neither the message sender nor the receiver is likely to notice. But a 30-second gap in the middle of a phone call is another story entirely,” said John Venator, president and chief executive at CompTIA.

That is the crux of the problem. A business relies on effective and reliable communication and even though VoIP may provide them with a smaller monthly telco bill, just a single network outage could cost the company hundreds or thousands of dollars in lost revenue. Clearly many business will avoid VoIP until the issue of network security is addressed. Previously we reported that security is set to top the agenda in 2007 as the threat of attacks on VoIP networks and users is expected to increase.