Modest IP skills limit networks

Europe wide survey finds limited skills

Many firms are lacking in Internet Protocol (IP) skills, which makes it hard for them to deploy and manage complex networking applications such as unified messaging, according to recent research.

In a survey of European data and telecoms managers, only 26 percent of firms said they had high levels of expertise in this area, while 39 percent described their in-house IP skills as “limited”.

Most organisations are confident with the underlying LAN and WAN infrastructure. But the integration of voice, video and other complex IP applications, such as unified messaging and presence capabilities, is posing a challenge.

“Security is still the biggest skills gap, but firms are also starting to talk about the ability to manage service quality in the network,” said Neil Moss of managed comms solutions provider NextiraOne, which carried out the research.