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Telenor (News - Alert), Vodafone, and TDC are the leading hosted VoIP providers in the area encompassing Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, according to new research from Infonetics Research.

Infonetics ranked EMEA providers based on criteria like installed base of lines or seats, financial stability, market strategy, service capabilities, and support options. Companies analyzed included Bezeq, BT, KPN, Orange, SFR, T-Systems, TDC, Telefónica O2, Telenor, and Vodafone (News - Alert). Norway’s Telenor has replaced BT as the leading hosted VoIP provider in EMEA. Infonetics assigned Telenor a score of 30.7 out of 35. Vodafone places second, with a 29.9 score.

"The leaders of our 2012 EMEA hosted VoIP scorecard – Telenor, Vodafone, and TDC – all offer strong mobile or FMC capabilities as part of their hosted VoIP services,” said Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP and IMS at Infonetics. “These offerings are particularly compelling to small businesses that rely only on mobile phones without sacrificing business-class features."

In a different recent study, Infonetics Research pointed out that there’s a growing gap between large and small VoIP providers in North America, and that Comcast is now ahead of the pack in the former group.

"After a banner 2010, 2011 was another year of consolidation in North America among business VoIP service providers,” said Myers. “Though there are still a large number of VoIP service providers in North America, consolidation is starting to separate the large providers from the rest of the pack."

At the end of last year, many of the top hosted VoIP service providers had more than 100,000 VoIP and UC seats, while others had fewer than 50,000 seats, according to the firm.

Myers added that, “Comcast's acquisition of New Global Telecom (News - Alert), the former perennial leader in our business VoIP scorecards, propelled Comcast to the No. 1 position in Infonetics' hosted Business VoIP Leadership Scorecard this year. And, for the fourth year in a row, Verizon Business is No. 1 in our IP Connectivity Leadership Scorecard, followed by AT&T."West and 8x8 (News - Alert) are also among the top hosted VoIP providers in North America, according to Infonetics, which adds that “the competitive landscape for hosted VoIP services is shaking up, with the traditional PBX and UC vendors such as ShoreTel, NEC, Mitel (News - Alert), Avaya, and Cisco jumping into the cloud.”

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