Many SMEs are not convinced by the safety of the telecommunication possibilities offered by VoIP, a report by the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) shows. The association, which represents the interests of more than 20,000 member companies worldwide, published the findings of a survey of over 350 SMEs. The results show that only 50 percent of the companies trusted the security of IP telephone providers.While the statistic shows a small improvement on last year's figure of 48 per cent, IP telephone security still lags significantly behind other forms of telecommunication. The survey found that traditional telephones were rated as secure by 82 percent and 72 per cent felt ethernet data networks were safe.The president and chief executive of CompTIA, John Venator, explained why SMEs may not embrace the communication possibilities offered by VoIP."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."He also commented on the greater levels of threat faced by companies which use the technology, saying: "When IP telephony and related technologies were in their infancy with relatively few deployments, hackers and criminals had little interest in attacking these networks. As the technology has gained broader acceptance in both the business and consumer markets, new and ever-more sophisticated security threats have arisen."Recently, VoIP provider Skype announced that it was simplifying the charge structure to encourage more businesses to take up the service. Stefan Öberg, the general manager of Skype Telecoms said: "It offers our users more for less because they can buy additional Skype paid for products but for a smaller cost."© Adfero Ltd